Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

PRIVATE BILLS (PROCEDURE)

Motion made,
That—the Promoters of every Private Bill which originated in this House in the last Session and which is listed in Schedule A to this Order, or which originated in the House of Lords in the last Session and which is listed in Schedule B to this Order may, notwithstanding anything in the Standing Orders or practice of this House, proceed with the Bill in the present Session; and the Petition for the Bill shall be deemed to have been deposited and all Standing Orders applicable thereto shall be deemed to have been complied with;
—every such Bill which originated in this House shall be presented to the House not later than the seventh day after this day;
—there shall be deposited with every Bill so presented a Declaration signed by the Agent for the Bill, stating that the Bill is the same, in every respect, as the Bill at the last stage of its proceedings in this House in the last Session;
—every Bill so presented shall be laid by one of the Clerks in the Private Bill Office upon the Table of the House on the next meeting of the House after the day on which the Bill was presented;
—every Bill listed in Part I of Schedule A shall, after being so laid on the Table, be deemed to have been read the first, second, and third time, and shall pass;
—every Bill listed in Part II of Schedule A shall, after being so laid on the Table, be deemed to have been read the first and second time and reported from Committee and ordered to lie upon the Table;
—when any Bill originating in the Lords, which was brought from the House of Lords in the last Session and to which this Order relates, is brought from the Lords in the present Session, the Agent for the Bill shall deposit in the Private Bill Office a Declaration, signed by him, stating that the Bill is the same, in every respect, as the Bill which was brought from the Lords in the last Session, and, as soon as a certificate by one of the Clerks in the Private Bill Office that such a Declaration has been so deposited has been laid upon the Table of the House, the Bill shall be deemed—

(i) in the case of the Buckinghamshire County Council Bill [Lords], the London Local Authorities Bill [Lords], the South Yorkshire Light Rail Transit Bill [Lords] and the United Medical and Dental Schools Bill [Lords], to have been read the first and second time and committed and shall be committed to the Chairman of Ways and Means, who shall make such amendments thereto as have been made by the Committee in the last Session, and shall report the Bill as amended to the House forthwith, and the Bill, so amended, shall be ordered to lie upon the Table;

(ii) in the case of the Nottingham Park Estate Bill [Lords], to have been read the first and second time and committed;
(iii) in the case of the Medway Tunnel Bill [Lords] and the Vale of Glamorgan (Barry Harbour) Bill [Lords], to have been read the first time and ordered to be read a second time;
(iv) in the case of the Greater Manchester (Light Rapid Transit System) (No. 3) Bill [Lords], to have been read the first time and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills;

—in respect of all the Bills listed in Schedules A and B to this Order, the various stages deemed to have been taken shall be recorded in the Journal of this House as having been taken;
—only such Petitions as were presented against any Bill brought from the Lords in the last Session which stood referred to the Committee on the Bill and which have not been withdrawn shall stand referred to the Committee on the Bill with the same title in the present Session;
—in relation to any Bill to which this Order applies Standing Order 127 relating to Private Business shall have effect as if the words "under Standing Order 126 (Reference to Committee of Petitions against Bill)" were omitted;
—in respect of any Bill originating in the House of Lords to which this Order relates and upon which the Examiners have reported in the last Session that no Standing Order not previously inquired into was applicable thereto, the Examiners shall, if the Bill is brought from the Lords in the present Session, be deemed to have made the same report in the present Session;
—no further Fees shall be charged in respect of any proceedings on any of the Bills to which this Order relates so far as Fees were incurred during the last Session;
—this House doth concur with the Lords in their Resolution contained in their Message [22nd November] relating to the River Tees Barrage and Crossing Bill [Lords], the Happisburgh Lighthouse Bill [Lords], the Great Yarmouth Port Authority Bill [Lords], the Southampton Rapid Transit Bill [Lords], the Heathrow Express Railway Bill [Lords], the London Local Authorities (No. 2) Bill [Lords] and the Greater Manchester (Light Rapid Transit System) Bill [Lords].

Schedule A

Part I

1. City of London (Spitalfields Market) Bill
2. Hythe Marina Village (Southampton) Wavescreen Bill
3. Isle of Wight Bill
4. New Southgate Cemetery and Crematorium Limited Bill
5. St. George's Hill, Weybridge, Estate Bill
6. Penzance Albert Pier Extension Bill

Part II

1. British Film Institute Southbank Bill
2. British Railways Bill
3. City of London (Various Powers) Bill
4. Redbridge London Borough Council Bill

Schedule B

1. Buckinghamshire County Council Bill [Lords]
2. London Local Authorities Bill [Lords]
3. South Yorkshire Light Rail Transit Bill [Lords]
4. United Medical and Dental Schools Bill [Lords]
5. Nottingham Park Estate Bill [Lords]
6. Medway Tunnel Bill [Lords]
7. Vale of Glamorgan (Barry Harbour) Bill [Lords]
8. Greater Manchester (Light Rapid Transit System) (No. 3) Bill [Lords]—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Hon. Members: Object.

To be considered on Thursday 7 December.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

EC Meetings

Mr. Adley: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he next intends to meet his European Economic Community counterparts; and what he expects to discuss.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. John Major): The next meeting of the Council of Economic and Finance Ministers will be held in Brussels on 18 December 1989. Its agenda has not yet been determined.

Mr. Adley: Is my right hon. Friend aware that everyone in the House will wish to congratulate him on this, his first appearance at the Dispatch Box at Question Time? All Conservative Members wish him 100 per cent. success in what he sets out to achieve.
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that within the Finance Ministries of the EEC countries different criteria are used to assess rail investment proposals in their state railway systems? Is he aware that our Treasury demands a higher rate of return yet pays lower regard to environmental and congestion factors than any other Finance Ministry in Europe? Is he aware, for example, that France spends twice as much as us on its railways and West Germany three times as much? Will he therefore, in concert with his colleagues, prepare a report so that we can factually assess railway investment decisions?

Mr. Major: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's opening remarks. Our rail investment programme is large, as he knows. The required rate of return is 8 per cent. in the United Kingdom, and it certainly varies in different parts of Europe, but the precise details of EEC countries' rates of requirement are unknown to me. I should need to check them and write to my hon. Friend.

Mr. Allen: The Chancellor will be aware that Members on all sides of the House, and the public, are concerned about war widows' pensions. When he meets his counterparts in Europe, will he take time to discuss with them their arrangements for war widows' pensions? Without committing himself today, will he listen to them with an open mind and bring before this House proposals for fair pensions for all war widows?

Mr. Major: I admire the hon. Gentleman's ingenuity in raising that important matter on this question. I discuss a large number of matters with my Finance Minister colleagues in Europe, but the issue to which he referred is more a matter for discussion within the Government.

Mr. Tim Smith: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the CBI favours early membership of the exchange rate mechanism of the European monetary system because it believes that that will lead to more stable exchange rates and lower interest rates? Does my right hon. Friend share my hope that the two conditions that the Government have laid down—lower inflation and the abolition of exchange controls within the Community—will have been met in a year's time?

Mr. Major: Quite apart from the two conditions that my hon. Friend mentioned, other important matters need

to be determined before we think it right for sterling to enter the exchange rate mechanism. I certainly hope to see lower inflation in this country and throughout Europe in a year's time.

Mrs. Beckett: When the Chancellor next meets his counterparts in Europe I suppose that he may discuss with them what his exchange rate policy is. Will he therefore tell the House what it is today?

Mr. Major: First, I welcome the hon. Lady to her first Question Time in her new position.
I shall continue to take account of the exchange rate, along with other monetary indicators, when setting interest rates. That has been and remains our policy.

Imports

Mr. Caborn: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the percentage rise in imports of (a) manufactured consumer goods excluding passenger cars and (b) manufactured capital goods.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Norman Lamont): In the six months to October, the volume of imports of consumer goods less cars was 3½ per cent. higher and the volume of imports of capital goods was 8 per cent. higher than in the previous six months.

Mr. Caborn: I thank the Chief Secretary for that answer and I was interested in the reference period. Can he confirm that in the years 1988 and 1989 imports of consumer goods have risen in value to a greater extent than those of capital goods? Does that not blow the Government myth that the trade deficit is due to an investment-led boom allegedly taking place in this country?

Mr. Lamont: I will certainly have to check the hon. Gentleman's figures. If he tables a written question, I shall be happy to answer it. Looking at the issue over a long period, for the first 10 months of 1989 capital goods imports were up 19 per cent. and consumer imports up 15 per cent. There has been a trend for some time for the growth of capital goods imports to be higher, which is a reflection of the strong investment in this country. It cannot be denied that we have had an investment boom; investment as a proportion of GDP is at its highest level ever. It is not surprising that this also shows up in the import figures.

Mr. Beaumont-Dark: Does my right hon. Friend agree that a balance of payments deficit of £15 billion or more matters to the long-term well-being of this country? Does he also agree that if tax concessions are available in the next Budget they should be to encourage manufacturing industry, not to lower the highest taxation rates, which would be inflationary?

Mr. Lamont: I note my hon. Friend's early Budget representation and we shall take it into account. We have made it clear that it would be prudent for the current account deficit to be reduced, and the Government's policies are designed to do that. It is not right to say that a country cannot finance a current account deficit for some time. My hon. Friend will know that the United States has run a current account deficit for seven years, Australia has run one for 15 years and Sweden ran one for 10 years. It is prudent to get the deficit down, but in a world in which


there has been extensive capital liberalisation, there are bound to be imbalances between different countries. In itself, that is not wrong.

Mr. Nicholas Brown: Is not the truth of the matter that the Chief Secretary's reference to an investment boom conceals the fact that the Government are desperately looking for an intellectually respectable argument as to why the balance of payment deficit does not matter but have failed to find one? It is certainly implausible for the Chief Secretary to come to the Dispatch Box and to present as good news the fact that our country now imports capital goods such as machine tools which we could make for ourselves if the Government had put their weight behind British domestic manufacturing.

Mr. Lamont: The current account deficit is a reflection of the excess growth of demand in this country, not a reflection of a lack of competitiveness. If it were, there would not have been the strong growth in British exports and we should not have seen British industry holding on to its share of world trade in the way that it has.

Mr. Forman: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Labour party tends to exaggerate this problem, partly because it is coming right as a result of Government policies and partly because in the modern world there is a trend towards international specialisation and we are bound to see greater dependence on external factors?

Mr. Lamont: My hon. Friend is right and it is clear that Government policies are beginning to have an effect; export volumes are rising faster than imports. In the three months to October, export volumes were 3 per cent. higher than in the previous three months and 10 per cent. higher than a year earlier. The same figures for imports, less oil and erratics, were 1½ per cent. and 8 per cent., so exports are obviously doing well.

VAT

Mr. Bill Michie: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what percentage of the average household expenditure is accounted for by value added tax; and what was the equivalent figure in 1978.

Mr. Harry Barnes: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what percentage of the average household expenditure is accounted for by value added tax; and what was the equivalent figure in 1978.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Richard Ryder): A married man on average earnings with two children, who will have seen his real take-home pay increase by nearly 32 per cent. since 1978–79, would have paid approximately 2.7 per cent. of his earnings in VAT in 1978–79 and will pay about 5 per cent. in 1989–90.

Mr. Michie: The Economic Secretary is apparently admitting that a married man with two children and average earnings will pay double the VAT that he paid 10 years ago. Does that not show that the Government give tax cuts with one hand but with their other, invisible hand take more away through VAT and mortgage rate hikes?

Mr. Ryder: The hon. Gentleman conveniently forgets that when we came to office in 1979 we faced a large budget deficit, bequeathed to us by the Labour Government. As a result, we raised some taxes during the first two years to

get into surplus. We are now in surplus again. In recent years, the take has been diminishing. The crucial figure for the hon. Gentleman to recall is the 32 per cent. to which I referred in my main answer.

Mr. Harry Barnes: Value added tax is a regressive form of taxation as it takes more from the poor than from the wealthy. Will the Government ensure that they do not go further down that road by putting VAT on essentials, including medicines, newspapers, books and children's clothes? What will be the position if the Government go down that road given that the public will also face the extra burden of the poll tax?

Mr. Ryder: The hon. Gentleman asked two supplementary questions. First, VAT is not regressive because VAT payments as a proportion of expenditure rise with income. Secondly, I do not wish to anticipate next year's Budget statement to be made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor.

Mr. Burns: In the light of my hon. Friend's previous answer, does he agree that it is voodoo economics for the Liberal Democrats in Chelmsford to call for an increase in VAT to 18 per cent. to curb inflation when that would put 1½ per cent. on the rate of inflation, cost £75 billion to industry and commerce, and increase the expenditure of the average household through increased VAT payments?

Mr. Ryder: It is never difficult to find a loony Liberal, but if there were to be any difficulty I know from my own experience that it is easy to find one in Chelmsford.

Mr. Anthony Coombs: Are not the Government to be congratulated on resisting the European Commission's proposals to extend VAT to children's clothes and food? Will my hon. Friend confirm that as a result of the enormous changes in national insurance and taxation which have taken place in the past 10 years, the average household pays—on a tax basis alone—£10 less per week now than it would have paid in 1979, and that 2 million people have been taken out of tax altogether?

Mr. Ryder: That is correct.

Mr. Jack Thompson: Will the Minister consider commenting on the effect of VAT on unemployed households, and will the Treasury consider issuing a leaflet explaining the VAT implications for households in which the parents are unemployed so that they can identify the things that they cannot buy?

Mr. Ryder: If the hon. Gentleman cares to write to me, I will consider his suggestion. I remind him that the benefit system in this country already takes care of the sort of people to whom he has referred.

Corporation Tax

Mr. Gill: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the corporation tax rate in the United Kingdom and other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Peter Lilley): The United Kingdom corporation tax rate is one of the lowest in any major industrial country in the OECD. With permission, I will circulate the complete list of rates in the Official Report.

Mr. Gill: I congratulate the Government on having one of the lowest rates of corporation tax in the EEC. That could have been achieved only under a Conservative Government. I urge my hon. Friend to give further consideration to the impact of corporation tax on the many small and medium-sized companies which depend on ploughed-back profits for their investment and expansion.

Mr. Lilley: I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks. He will know that we have a special low rate of tax for small companies. In his last Budget, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson), the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, raised the threshold above which the higher rates come in. We have taken account of that already, but I shall consider further what my hon. Friend has said.

Mr. Duffy: Is the Minister aware that the master cutlers told the Sheffield chamber of commerce at its annual dinner last week that despite the reduction in corporation tax, investment capital project decisions have become more difficult since 1983 because of the reduction in offset allowances, at a time when business men find themselves locked ever more severely into competition with European and other overseas competitors?

Mr. Lilley: Since we introduced the reforms in corporation tax, the quantity of investment has reached record levels and the quality of investment has improved considerably. That is evidenced by the profitability of industry, which is at its highest level since the 1960s. Despite the fact that we have the lowest rate in the OECD, the revenues from corporation tax have doubled in cash terms.

Mrs. Currie: Is it not true that our favourable corporation tax rates are a major factor in encouraging foreign investment in this country? Is my hon. Friend aware that yesterday we heard that the compulsory purchase order had been granted for the land in my constituency required by Toyota, which will shortly be investing more than £700 million in our country? Is not the fact that that business is coming to Britain a tribute to our good work force and our favourable business environment? No other sweeteners are needed.

Mr. Lilley: My hon. Friend is correct. Foreign businesses, like British businesses, prefer a low-tax low-subsidy regime rather than the high-tax and, inevitably, high-subsidy regime that Labour offered. The success of my hon. Friend's constituents and others in Derbyshire in attracting Toyota is a tribute to them, as is the success of the tax regime that we have provided in attracting it to Britain.

Following is the information:



Main national rate per cent.
Total national and local tax


Australia
39·0
—


Austria
30·0
40·1


Belgium
43·0
—


Canada
28·0
143·5


Denmark
50·0
—


Finland
33·0
46·5–51·5


France
42·0
—


Germany
56·0
264·8


Greece
46·0
—


Iceland
51·0
—


Ireland
43·0
—

Main national rate per cent.
Total national and local tax


Italy
36·0
46·4


Japan
40·0
356·0


Luxembourg
34·0
41·2


Netherlands
35·0
—


New Zealand
33·0
—


Norway
50·8
—


Portugal
36·5
—


Spain
35·0
35·7


Sweden
52·0
—


Switzerland
9·8
429·2


Turkey
46·0
47·84


United Kingdom
35·0
—


United States of America
34·0
40·13


1 Ontario.


2 Average.


3 Approximate average.


4 Zurich.

Notes:

1. The rates of company tax shown are those at present in force.

2. There are lower rates for smaller companies in Belgium, Canada, Finland, Germany, Japan, Luxembourg, United Kingdom and United States of America.

Interest Rates

Mr. Hoyle: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many letters he has received from small businesses about the level of interest rates.

Mr. Ryder: A small number each month.

Mr. Hoyle: Is the Minister not aware that high interest rates are crippling small businesses? What assumption has he made for the level of interest rates in 1990, based on the very optimistic forecast in the Autumn Statement of 5·75 per cent. inflation?

Mr. Ryder: If the hon. Gentleman looked a little more closely at the Autumn Statement, he would have his reply. Obviously he has not read it carefully enough.

Mr. Donald Thompson: Is my hon. Friend aware that small business men in Calder Valley are worried about interest rates, concerned about inflation and absolutely terrified of any prospect of a Labour Government?

Mr. Ryder: My hon. Friend, as usual, is correct in most of his assumptions. I concede that high interest rates are causing a great deal of concern among small business men and mortgage payers. I am interested in my hon. Friend's question because a Gallup poll on Tuesday showed that the vast majority of people in this country.

Hon. Members: Reading.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Ministers have discretion in what they read from the Dispatch Box.

Mr. Ryder: The poll showed that the vast majority of people in this country are content with the Government's economic policy and frightened of a Labour party coming to office with rising inflation, economic chaos, high taxation and undoing all that this Government have put right. That is what the people of this country said categorically in the poll published by The Daily Telegraph.

Mr. Boateng: We appreciate the Economic Secretary's difficulties, but why is he so singularly unforthcoming-even coy—about the assumptions as to interest rates which underlie the Autumn Statement? Does he agree with his


officials who, only this morning, are reported as saying that concern about the upward pressure on interest rates and concern about sterling was "so much political froth"? What comfort is that to the small business man suffering an investment nightmare or to the home owner suffering a mortgage hell? Is not the political froth that we should be concerned about the froth that has been washed up on the Treasure Bench? The Government should come clean or get out.

Mr. Ryder: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Labour Front Bench, but his three years of rehearsal have done him no good at all. If the hon. Gentleman were to read the Autumn Statement and previous Autumn Statements, as I advised his hon. Friend to do, he would find that interest rate figures are never given and were not given by the Labour Government either.

Mr. Andrew Welsh: Will the Minister show that he is aware how especially vulnerable small businesses are to high interest rates? What specific steps is he taking to help small businesses during what will obviously be a prolonged period of high interest rates?

Mr. Ryder: I fully concede that many small business men and people paying mortgages are suffering from high rates, but a far worse enemy to small business men and to mortgage payers is high inflation. The hon. Gentleman asked what we were doing to help small business men and I will tell him. The loan guarantee scheme has helped more than 20,000 small businesses. Increased corporation tax bands have helped small businesses. The 150 deregulatory measures introduced by the Department of Trade and Industry and detailed in a White Paper are helping small businesses. Improved inheritance tax provisions have also helped small businesses, particularly small family businesses.

Sir Anthony Grant: Is not my hon. Friend astounded at the sheer cheek of the Opposition when, instead of a record number of small firms starting up, as has happened under this Government, in the days when the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) was the Minister responsible for small firms a record number were closing every week?

Mr. Ryder: Despite what the Labour party may wish in its heart of hearts, new small businesses are starting at the rate of 1,300 per week. In the last full year of the Labour Government in which the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) was a Minister, the number was diminishing at a rate of 100 per week.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. In fairness I should call the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer).

Mr. Cryer: I am grateful for your sense of fairness, Mr. Speaker.
Is not the reality that this year bankruptcies among small firms have risen by 40 per cent.—a Tory Government record which was never equalled by the Labour Government, who gave a huge range of incentives to small firms, which appreciated and understood the concern that we felt for that sector?

Mr. Ryder: The hon. Gentleman does not seem to be aware of the full facts. Each and every week 1,300 small businesses are starting up. They are being registered for

VAT, and that is a net figure, not a gross figure. When the hon. Gentleman was responsible for these matters in the 1970s the net figure was a loss of 100 per week.

Balance of Payments

Mr. Hardy: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will give his latest estimate for the United Kingdom visible balance for 1989.

Mr. Andrew Smith: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest forecast for the current account of the balance of payments for 1989.

Mr. Norman Lamont: I refer the hon. Members to the Autumn Statement forecast, table 2.3.

Mr. Hardy: Do not those figures illustrate our deplorable trading condition, and is not that condition the worst of all the world's industrial nations, at least those within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development? Does the Minister deny that that is an illustration of the most appalling economic mismanagement throughout the past, oil-rich decade?

Mr. Lamont: It is not correct to say that our current account deficit is the largest as a proportion of GDP. There are countries with a larger deficit as a proportion of their GDP. I do not accept that the current account deficit is an accurate reflection of the competitiveness or health of a country's economy. The hon. Gentleman seems to be unaware that of the major industrial countries, only two are running a surplus. If he wishes to consider the health of Britain's balance sheet, let him look at our net overseas assets, which are the third largest of any country. That will be an enormous strength to us while we have a current account deficit.

Mr. Andrew Smith: Will the Chief Secretary give his view on whether the devaluation of the pound that has taken place since the Chancellor took office will help or harm our balance of payments? Given the Chancellor's wholly inadequate reply to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, South (Mrs. Beckett) will the Chief Secretary take this opportunity to make clear to the House precisely what is Government policy on exchange rates in relation to our balance of payments and inflation?

Mr. Lamont: My right hon. Friend the Chancellor made the Government's position in respect of exchange rates crystal clear. It is absurd and a little irresponsible of the hon. Member to press my right hon. Friend further on that subject. My right hon. Friend has gone as far as possible on a very sensitive subject, and the hon. Gentleman should not press him.
As to the balance of trade deficit and the effect of the movement of the pound on the volume of our exports, I have already said that our exports will perform better than imports over the next year. Recent import and export patterns indicate that the trend is good.

Mr. Higgins: In praising our balance of payments position, is it not important to note that last month imports fell, showing clearly that the measures by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to curtail demand and to beat inflation are not only working at a domestic level but are improving our balance of payments? As to Britain's assets, perhaps my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary will


commend an article by Samuel Brittan, in the Financial Times on 23 November, which brought out this country's very strong asset position—which compares favourably not only with the United States and Germany but with Japan.

Mr. Lamont: My right hon. Friend's remarks in respect of the current account are absolutely correct, for exports are rising faster than imports. As to the asset position of our overseas investments, we are far ahead of the United States. The two countries ahead of us are Germany and Japan. As a proportion of gross domestic product, our net overseas assets are the largest in the world.

Mr. Budgen: Will my right hon. Friend accept my congratulations on the Government's decision not to raise interest rates recently to counter the 4 per cent. devaluation that has occurred in the past month? Will he revert to the policy pursued during the Government's most successful economic period between 1979 and 1983, when they followed not an exchange rate target but a money supply target?

Mr. Lamont: I note my hon. Friend's comments. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor favours a firm exchange rate, and he continues to take account of the exchange rate alongside other monetary indicators when setting interest rates.

Mrs. Beckett: Does the Chief Secretary realise that these are the last Treasury questions of the decade? It has been an oil-rich decade during which the Government enjoyed the biggest oil revenues in history and took the credit for everything that has gone right. Now that Britain has the biggest balance of payments deficit in its history, can the Chief Secretary predict whether the Government will ever take the blame for anything that has gone wrong?

Mr. Lamont: As to the past oil-rich decade, we have allowed this country to accrue overseas assets, whereas the Labour party want to see oil revenues invested in an industrial strategy—which would mean supporting a lot of lame ducks and unprofitable investments for the taxpayer. Our policy has resulted in a stream of income and a stream of dividends that will benefit this country for years to come.

Employment

Mr. Hayward: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the growth in employment over the last five years.

Mr. Lilley: Total employment has increased by 2¾ million since 1983.

Mr. Hayward: I welcome that excellent news. Does not my hon. Friend find it amazing that whereas the Labour party complains about small numbers of job losses, when it comes to the creation of 2,500 jobs at Grangemouth or the announcement of new research and development jobs with Nissan, it fails to welcome that news—especially when the hon. Members for Dagenham (Mr. Gould), for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett) and for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) have previously complained that most of the jobs available in Japanese car manufacturing plants are screwdriver jobs?

Mr. Lilley: My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. One of the Opposition's most distasteful characteristics was the ghoulish pleasure that they used to derive from rising unemployment. Now that it is falling, they are totally silent. Of all the questions on the Order Paper put down by the Opposition, there is not one that deals with the excellent fall in unemployment in this country.

Mr. Win Griffiths: Can the Financial Secretary confirm that—despite the sudden rise in employment that has occurred in the past couple of years—Wales, the west midlands, the north-west, Yorkshire and Humberside, the north and Northern Ireland still have fewer people in employment than they did in 1979, and that almost 1 million men are unemployed?

Mr. Lilley: Unemployment is falling in almost every region, and last year it fell fastest in the north. That is good news, and it should be welcomed by every hon. Member.

Sir Peter Tapsell: In view of the Government's great success in guiding the British people back towards conditions approaching full employment over the past two years, may I express the hope that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will resist the continuing requests from teenage City scribblers for ever higher interest rates, which would provide the country with only a short-term currency advantage and would put the real economy and employment prospects at risk?

Mr. Lilley: My right hon. Friend has made very clear which factors he will take into account in determining interest rates. I am happy to say that they do not include teenage scribblers—although I was once one myself.

Exchange Rate Mechanism

Mr. Geraint Howells: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what progress has been made as regards the conditions that must be met before the United Kingdom enters the exchange rate mechanism of the European monetary system; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Major: I refer the hon. Gentleman to my speech to the House on 2 November.

Mr. Howells: Does the Chancellor agree that British farmers have no opportunity to compete on equal terms with their European counterparts because we are not full members of the European monetary system? What plans has he to help small farmers to overcome the problem of the high interest rates that now prevail?

Mr. Major: Small farmers face the same difficulties with interest rates as other business men. I entirely understand the hon. Gentleman's point, but I am bound to say that I think that the principal competitive problem that affects small farmers is caused by the unfair subsidies often received by their counterparts elsewhere in the Community.

Miss Emma Nicholson: May I support the plea by the hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke North (Mr. Howells) for help for farmers, and draw my right hon. Friend's attention particularly to the extensification part of the common agricultural policy? The CAP is badly in need of modernisation, but surely extensification is the true new social way of helping farmers to retain their rural economy.

Mr. Major: Whether or not that is correct—and I suspect that it is—it is probably only tangential to the exchange rate mechanism.

Mr. Chris Smith: The Chancellor said on 2 November, and has said subsequently, that inflation must come down before Britain can join the exchange rate mechanism. He has also forecast that, at the end of next year, inflation will be running at 5¾ per cent. Will that figure be low enough, or is the inflation criterion simply another way of saying that he has no intention of taking Britain into the ERM in the foreseeable future?

Mr. Major: As the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) pointed out in a recent debate, I indicated my support for the exchange rate mechanism as long ago as 1981. The Government have set out four conditions that must be met before we can join the ERM; they were made entirely clear at Madrid, and they remain the same today.

Mr. Butterfill: Does my right hon. Friend agree that we cannot make progress on an exchange rate mechanism while restrictions on capital movement between member countries remain? Those restrictions include not only exchange rate control, but restrictions on the activities of banks in various countries in raising foreign currency debt.

Mr. Major: My hon. Friend is entirely right. He has touched on the other conditions that need to be met. We certainly need to see capital liberalisation, freedom of financial services and, of course, strengthened competition quality. Those matters are well understood by our European partners, who must deliver accordingly before we are in a position to join the ERM.

Monetary Policy

Mr. John Townend: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what account he takes of each of the monetary indicators in setting monetary policy.

Mr. Lilley: My right hon. Friend sets a target for MO and also monitors broad money and other financial indicators, in particular the exchange rate.

Mr. Townend: Does my hon. Friend agree that over the past 18 months the increase in the rate of inflation was due principally to the increase in broad money? Can he assure the House that in future the Chancellor will take more notice of broad money than his predecessor did?

Mr. Lilley: It would probably be more accurate to retrace the resurgence of inflation to the relaxation of monetary policy at the time of the collapse of world stock markets in October 1987. It is significant that we rarely relax monetary policy in response to non-inflationary matters to keep growth going. That is always the intention of the Opposition. They would have continuously rising inflation but we are determined to get inflation down.

Mr. Rowlands: If the Minister monitors exchange rates, will he tell us the exchange rate between the pound and the deutschmark on the day of the speech by the right hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Lawson) at the Conservative party conference when he said that his was not a party for devaluation, and what the figure is now?

Mr. Lilley: The current exchange rate is much where it was at the beginning of 1987, let alone then. The policy consistently advocated by the Opposition would destroy the value of the pound internally and externally.

Output

Mr. Marland: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the growth in output over the last five years for which figures are available in the United Kingdom and other EEC countries.

Mr. Norman Lamont: The United Kingdom, together with Spain, has grown faster than any other EC country except Luxembourg.

Mr. Marland: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that encouraging answer, does he remember the late 1970s when Britain was branded the poor man of Europe? Does his answer not underline the vigour of our economy and give the lie to so much that Opposition Members say about the economy?

Mr. Lamont: My hon. Friend draws attention to the fact that during the 1960s and 1970s Britain was bottom of the growth league, but during the 1980s our growth rate has out-performed that of all other EC countries. That is certainly something of which we should be proud.

Mr. Heifer: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the last Labour Government inherited the economy from the Conservative Government and that private industry was collapsing on a massive scale? The Tory Government had to take over Rolls-Royce and we had to take over British Leyland and British Steel because they had collapsed. In addition, we had to take over the shipbuilding industry because it had collapsed. There would have been no industry had it not been for the Labour Government—[Interruption.] Oh yes. We have now had a Tory Government for 10 years and industry is collapsing on a bigger scale than ever before.

Mr. Lamont: The trouble with the hon. Gentleman's argument is that the failures of the Labour party in Government did not apply just to the last Labour Government but to the Labour Government before that, the one before that and to all Labour Governments.

Interest Rates

Mr. Robert B. Jones: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will estimate the annual cost to British industry of (a) a rise of 1 per cent. in interest rates and (b) a rise of 1 per cent. in payroll costs.

Mr. Lilley: A 1 per cent. rise in payroll costs would cost companies £1¾ billion, roughly three times as much as a 1 per cent. rise in interest rates.

Mr. Jones: I thank my hon. Friend for that interesting answer. Since rising interest rates are a phenomenon of most industrialised countries, why does the CBI bleat about them? Higher wage rates are not a phenomenon of many industrialised countries, but the CBI leaves them entirely alone instead of concentrating on trying to keep wage costs under control.

Mr. Lilley: My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Interest rates in Britain have gone up by the same amount as interest rates in Germany over the past 12


months. Obviously, it is in the power of industrialists to keep their total costs down if they keep firm control of their payroll costs.

Social Charter

Mr. Andy Stewart: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his assessment of the effect on the United Kingdom's long-term economic performance of the proposed European social charter.

Mr. Gale: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his assessment of the effect on the United Kingdom's long-term economic performance of the proposed European social charter.

Mr. Major: Implementation of the proposed social charter in its present form would have a harmful effect on economic performance. It would raise costs and cost jobs.

Mr. Stewart: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is ludicrous for the EEC to try to introduce laws to govern a wide variety of our small business sector?

Mr. Major: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I suggest to our colleagues in Europe that the principle of subsidiarity would serve us much better than the proposed social charter.

Mr. Gale: Further to that answer, what would be the effect on the United Kingdom's economy of a 35-hour working week?

Mr. Major: I scarcely think that an immediate 35-hour week would be helpful for the economy.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER

Engagements

Mr. Orme: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 30 November.

The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today. This evening, I shall be attending a dinner given by the 4th Battalion of the Royal Green Jackets to mark the retirement of my right hon. Friend the noble Lord Holderness as its honorary colonel.

Mr. Orme: Does the Prime Minister agree that in the weeks coming up to Christmas the ambulance service will be under increasing pressure, and that the walkout in London yesterday only underlines the seriousness of the situation? Will she now instruct the Secretary of State for Health to refer the matter immediately to arbitration?

The Prime Minister: I understand that the accident and emergency service is being provided by National Health Service ambulance crews over most of the country. They are answering 999 calls, and dealing with urgent admissions, transfers of very sick patients and journeys for patients who need various treatments. In London, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire, the emergency service is being supplemented by vehicles and crews provided by the armed forces and the police. With regard to the last part of the right hon. Gentleman's

question, he is aware that these negotisations are conducted in the Whitley councils, which make no provision for arbitration.

Sir William Clark: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 30 November.

The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I just gave.

Sir William Clark: Has my right hon. Friend noted that Toyota, Nissan and the German firm Reinshagen have announced substantial investment in the British car industry? Is this not proof positive that the overseas investor has complete confidence in the British economy? It is a far cry from the days when the British taxpayer had to pay £3,500 million of taxpayers' money to British Leyland.

The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend. We welcome this manifestation of confidence in British industry today. It will enable us to bring the car industry back to its former glories. When all that investment is on stream, we shall be producing some 2 million cars a year in this country, whereas we were producing only 1·1 million in 1979. It is also a tribute to the change in trade union law in this country, which eliminated some of the previous difficulties, restrictive practices and continuous strikes that nearly destroyed the car industry 10 years ago.

Mr. Kinnock: When the Prime Minister responded to my question on Tuesday, did she know that the sale of Rover had been assisted by £38 million worth of under-the-counter handouts, and that on the best estimates available Rover was looking forward to three years of significant profitability?

The Prime Minister: I answered the right hon. Gentleman as I shall answer him again today—the Government struck the best deal that they believed they could in all the circumstances of the sale. The circumstances of the sale were that the extra cash injection at the time of final privatisation brought the total funds injected by the taxpayer into British Leyland up to £3,457 million since 1975. I understand that the forward forecasts of profits were before interest had been paid on capital. That is hardly a profit.

Mr. Kinnock: I rather felt on Tuesday that we had not had the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and I feel that now. Is it not clear from what we now know in detail, that the Government were less than honest with the European Community, deceived Parliament, and sold the British taxpayers short, and that the whole affair has been a rip-off? What will the Prime Minister do to get the British people's money back? Is not this the time for her to give the public apology for which I asked on Tuesday?

The Prime Minister: No, Mr. Speaker. If there was a rip-off, it was the almost £3 billion which the British taxpayer had paid since 1975 to keep British Leyland-Rover going. The amount was growing because of the Varley-Marshall assurances and already in March 1988 it had reached £1·6 billion. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman remembers that when we attempted to sell British Leyland-Rover in 1986, our efforts were frustrated by the hysteria with which the sale was greeted by the Opposition. The right hon. and learned Member for


Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) called our efforts "anti-British in effect" and did infinite damage to the prospect of a successful sale to other buyers who may have been interested. He went on:
Can we now be assured … that there will be no question, during the lifetime of the Government, of Land Rover or any other part of the British Leyland Group passing out of British control?"—[Official Report, 25 March 1986; Vol. 94, c. 787–88.]
That prevented many other prospective buyers from coming forward, so much damage had been done by the Opposition's strictures on overseas car companies.

Mr. Kinnock: Truly me thinks that the Lady doth protest too much. Did she or did she not know on Tuesday that the sale had been sweetened with £38 million worth of handouts from taxpayers' money?

Hon. Members: Answer.

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry will make a full statement later this afternoon. The Leader of the Opposition should be perturbed that the car industry could not succeed without enormous cash injections from the British taxpayer—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question."] That company constantly put its hands into the taxpayers' pocket—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Prime Minister must be given the chance to reply.

The Prime Minister: We had the irony that among companies producing cars in Britain some, such as Ford, paid money into the British Treasury while others, such as British Leyland, took rather larger sums out of it. [Interruption.]

Mr. Faulds: Come clean.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Let us calm down.

Mr. Tebbit: Will my right hon. Friend reconsider her reply to the Leader of the Opposition? Does she agree that there has been a rip-off—the rip-off of the billions of pounds that were swallowed up by Leyland over many years?

Mr. Skinner: The right hon. Gentleman should declare his interest.

Mr. Tebbit: I have no interest to declare. Does my right hon. Friend further agree that the Leader of the Opposition would benefit from some instruction about the cost of a contingent liability of £1·6 billion and the value to the taxpayer of getting rid of it?

The Prime Minister: I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend. Had British Leyland-Rover not been privatised, it would have continued putting its hands in the pockets of the British taxpayer indefinitely. Then we should soon have been in difficulties with the Commission because of heavy subsidies to British industry.

Mr. Mallon: I am sure that the Prime Minister and the House will join me in condemning the horrific, sectarian murders last night in Northern Ireland. In view of the continuing loss of life, hope and quality of life in the north of Ireland, will the Prime Minister please take the Northern Ireland problem off the backburner and, along with the Northern Irish political parties and the Irish Government, as specified in the Anglo-Irish Agreement

and again in the Queen's Speech, set about taking the problem by the scruff of the neck and solve it once and for all?

The Prime Minister: First, I gladly join the hon. Gentleman in expressing our horror at the murders and our sympathy for the victims' relatives. Although the hon. Gentleman cannot respond immediately, I ask him to bear in mind that it is easier to say what he said towards the end of his question than to put it into practice. I pay tribute to the work of the security forces, whether the police or armed forces. We shall never be able to solve the problem entirely until we have the full co-operation of all people in providing evidence to bring the criminals to justice from whatever side of the sectarian boundary they come.

Mr. Colin Shepherd: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 30 November.

The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Shepherd: Does my right hon. Friend agree that those who favour the European social charter must also favour her Government's abolition of the closed shop? Is there not a lesson in that for the Leader of the Opposition?

The Prime Minister: Yes, Mr. Speaker. One of the good aspects of the social charter—we disagree with many; most in fact—is that it would require the abolition of the closed shop—a measure which this Government will introduce in the trade union Bill which will be presented to the House later. If the Opposition are in favour of the social charter. I hope that they will support fully our trade union measures.

Mr. James Lamond: Is the Prime Minister aware that in answering my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme) everything she said showed how conscientious ambulance men and women were in answering emergency calls? Is she aware that at the end of her answer when she sought refuge by saying that the matter was for the Whitley councils, she showed that she was not prepared to treat the dispute as the emergency that it is? Is it not high time that she stepped in to ensure that the dispute goes to arbitration?

The Prime Minister: I described where the ambulance service was honouring its undertaking as an accident and emergency service and carrying out its duties in that respect. As the hon. Gentleman knows, nine tenths of the work of the ambulance service in the miles of calls it answers do not involve accidents or emergencies, but bringing in-patients and out-patients to hospitals. Naturally, we wish that service to be restored. The hon. Gentleman already knows that a fresh offer which will last for 18 months has been made to ambulance crews. We hope that they will accept it.

Mr. Bendall: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 30 November.

The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Bendall: In view of the historic events taking place in eastern Europe, will my right hon. Friend confirm that Britain will maintain her military commitment to NATO and encourage other member states to do likewise?

The Prime Minister: Yes. I think that the members of the European Community, and I am sure the Heads of Government when they meet at NATO next Monday, will reaffirm that it is vital to continue NATO which has given us peace for the past 40 years. Both the concept and practice are good. It is vital to retain NATO and the Warsaw pact which provide the machinery through which we are negotiating conventional and chemical arms reductions. We are fortunate to enjoy peace. We must always have the means to keep the peace and NATO is that means.

Mr. Ashdown: How is it that the Prime Minister trusts the Vietnamese Government so little that she is prepared to risk aiding the Khmer Rouge in order to be able to kick that Government out of Cambodia, and yet trusts them so much that she is prepared to use force to repatriate the Vietnamese boat people into their hands? When will the Government get rid of one or other, but preferably both, of those shameful policies?

The Prime Minister: As the right hon. Gentleman is aware, we do not support the Khmer Rouge. We have supported the non-Communist resistance. If the right hon. Gentleman is referring to the representation in the United Nations, he will know that that is determined by the United Nations credentials committee which presently supports the Democratic Alliance of which Khmer Rouge is a part. Is he suggesting as some people are that one should support the Hun Sen Government? Hun Sen and some of his people were members of Khmer Rouge and as a puppet Government were previously kept in power by the Vietnamese.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about the Vietnamese boat people. Those who are genuine refugees—and that again is determined by the United Nations—will not be returned. Those who are illegal immigrants will be returned and it is customary under international law for countries to receive their own immigrants back into their country. If the right hon. Gentleman is suggesting that we should ever get to a position where we cannot return illegal immigrants to their country of origin, he is proposing international chaos.

Dame Janet Fookes: Will my right hon. Friend take a little time today to reflect on two outstanding achievements? First, will she reflect on the 70th anniversary of Lady Astor the Member for Plymouth, Sutton, taking her seat in this place as the first woman Member of Parliament? Secondly, will she reflect on her own outstanding achievement as Britain's first woman Prime Minister?

The Prime Minister: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. We would all do well to remember that this is the 70th anniversary of the day on which Lady Astor took her seat in the House. It was a momentous day for women and a great tribute to all the suffragettes who had worked so hard to see that day. We must also be grateful to Lady Astor for the magnificent way in which she discharged her duties so that many of us could follow after. I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning my "first" and hope that it will continue.

Business of the House

Dr. John Cunningham: Will the Leader of the House tell us the business for next week?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Sir Geoffrey Howe): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 4. DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Coal Industry Bill.
Motion on the Appropriation (No. 4) Northern Ireland Order.
TUESDAY 5 DECEMBER—SeCOnd Reading of the Education (Student Loans) Bill.
Motion on the Teachers Pay and Conditions (Continuation) Order.
WEDNESDAY 6 DECEMBER—Second Reading of the Property Services Agency and Crown Suppliers Bill.
Motion on the Local Government Act (Competition in Sports and Leisure Facilities) Order.
THURSDAY 7 DECEMBER—Second Reading of the National Health Service and Community Care Bill (First Day).
FRIDAY 8 DECEMBER—There will be a debate on action to tackle the misuse of drugs on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
MONDAY II DECEMBER—Second Reading of the National Health Service and Community Care Bill (Second Day).
Debate on a motion to take note of EC documents relating to the 1990 EC budget. Details will be given in the Official Report.

[Monday 11 December

Relevant European Community Documents

(a) COM(89)175
Preliminary Draft Budget of the European Communities for 1990.


(b) 8271/89
The Draft Budget of the European Communities for 1990.


(c) 9704/89
The European Parliament's proposed amendments and modifications to the Draft Budget.


(d) 8848/89
Letter of Amendment No. 1 to the Preliminary Draft Budget of the European Communities for 1990.


(e) 9627/189
Letter of Amendment No. 2 to the Preliminary Draft Budget of the European Communities for 1990.

Relevant Reports of European Legislation Committee

(a) HC 15-xxxii (1988–89), para 3.
(b) HC 15-xxxvii (1988–89), para 3.
(c) No Report yet made.
(d) HC 15-xxxvi (1988–89), para 8.
(e) HC 15-xxxviii (1988–89), para 8].

Dr. Cunningham: I thank the Leader of the House for responding so positively to our request for a two-day debate on the National Health Service and Community Care Bill. In view of the Government's difficulties and their well-known desire to have a break, has he been able to reach any decision about the dates of the Christmas recess? I suspect that it would also be convenient for the House if he could tell us something about the likely dates of the Easter recess as well.
Has the Leader of the House seen the graphic reports by Michael Buerk, the BBC correspondent, about the impending catastrophic famine in Ethiopia, a matter which my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) has sought to raise in the House several times this week? Given the huge amount of public interest in Britain in that impending tragedy, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman provide time next week for either a statement by the Minister or, better still, a debate on that important issue and the British Government's response to it?
We look forward to receiving an apology from the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in a few moments, to the House and to the British taxpayer, for the Government's appalling squandering of more than £200 million of taxpayers' money over the Rover fiasco. A brief statement is no substitute for proper public debate about the fiasco—in fact, a scandal. Will the Leader of the House provide time next week for such a debate?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I shall deal first with the last point raised by the hon. Gentleman. When I became Chancellor of the Exchequer the most formidable burden that passed across my desk was the unending series of bills—billions of pounds, not hundreds of millions—for losses in nationalised industries. That included the continued outpouring of billions of pounds to the British motor industry. One of the Government's most formidable achievements has been to staunch that flow by the privatisation of about half of the nationalised industries. We have successfully achieved that result with the Rover Group and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry will defend that later this afternoon. The hon. Gentleman talked about billions of pounds being lost to the British taxpayer, but he should remember that it was Opposition Members who squandered those resources without any limit. We have brought an end to that.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments on the arrangements for the two-day debate on the National Health Service and Community Care Bill. That was also arranged in response to a question from the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing) on behalf of Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National party.
I hope that it will be possible to make an announcement about the proposed date for the Christmas recess in my business statement next week. In the light of what the hon. Gentleman said about the subsequent recess, and the fact that Easter is likely to be later than usual next year, I shall see whether it is possible to take account of that in the arrangements I make and I will tell the House as soon as possible.
As I have said before during business questions, the whole House is very concerned about the continuing threat of famine in Ethiopia. We have provided some 17,000 tonnes of food aid this year and, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development announced a further £2 million of emergency aid on 27 November. The only long-term answer is to end the civil war as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, we have been trying to persuade all the parties to the conflict to permit free access across the lines for relief supplies.
I shall bear in mind the wish expressed by right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House to be kept informed. The hon. Gentleman is right to remind us of the


gravity of the situation there. I assure the House that the Government are mindful of it, and are responding on a continuous basis.

Mr. Michael Jopling: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the way that the rules of the House which allow us to discharge our duties with regard to private Bills is conducted has become a total disgrace? Will he make a statement next week to demonstrate that the Government will use the first possible opportunity to change the rules so that those who wish to introduce such Bills will have them dealt with expeditiously?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: As my right hon. Friend knows, in the first instance the supervision of private Bills is a matter for the Chairman of Ways and Means. He will have seen that a revival motion which includes all the Bills that the Chairman of Ways and Means had set down for debate on Thursday 9 November, is on the Order Paper. We hope that that will receive a favourable response in the House. My right hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the need to ensure that the private Bill procedure is not used to obstruct the legitimate aspirations of those people who have taken a great deal of trouble to bring a Bill before the House. I am considering that, and I recognise the importance of the issue.

Rev. Martin Smyth: I note that there is no mention of the Education Reform (Northern Ireland) Order 1989 in the business for next week. Can the Lord President give us an assurance that, when he brings it before the House, the time for it will be extensive to allow us to debate it adequately as it may be the last one to appear before the House?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I have already received notice of the importance attached to providing sufficient time for discussion of that subject. We shall see whether we can respond to that request.

Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: Will my right hon. and learned Friend, recognising that, with our adverse balance of payments, the future of the services provided by the Export Credits Guarantee Department is of crucial rather than marginal importance, ensure that Her Majesty's Government issue a Green Paper which is debated in this House before they arrive at any decisions about the future of these functions and how they are carried out? Is he aware that many right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House are united in their appreciation that this subject must be debated properly in the House before a decision is taken?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: As someone who was at one time responsible as a Minister for those important provisions, I understand the significance of my hon. Friend's point. I shall bring it to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, but I cannot give any undertaking about how the matter may be brought forward.

Mr. Jack Ashley: With regard to haemophiliacs infected by AIDS, does not the Leader of the House find it remarkable that, after many parliamentary questions, early-day motions and deputations to Ministers, including the Prime Minister, most

haemophiliacs and most hon. Members are distressed at the inadequacy of the money that is offered? May we please debate this matter urgently next week?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: The right hon. Gentleman returns to a matter to which he has drawn my attention previously. He knows that discussions are taking place with the Macfarlane Trust and the Charity Commissioners to determine the best way in which to meet the Government's objective of making lump sum payments of £20,000 and continuing help on a more generous scale to those in special need. I have nothing to add to the answer given by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Health on 23 November.

Mr. Michael Marshall: Will my right hon. and learned Friend reflect on the difficulties experienced by hon. Members when foreign affairs debates are held on successive Fridays? He will appreciate the problem of constituency work clashes. Can he assure the House that he will use his heart and head in an effort to provide a two-day debate on foreign affairs before the House rises —at least before Christmas?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I do not think that, even if I used my heart and head to their utmost, I could achieve that objective. Neither of those organs needs to be reminded of the legitimate importance of foreign affairs. That is why we have an additional debate tomorrow. I also understand the misgivings that arise from successive Fridays being devoted to the subject. I hope, however, that my hon. Friend will be grateful for the modest advance that we have been able to make.

Mr. James Wallace: On a day when hon. Members will have noticed the flag of St. Andrew flying over Westminster abbey, may I ask the Leader of the House to direct his mind to Scottish affairs? does he think it satisfactory that, with our completely different Health Service structure, provisions to reform the Health Service in Scotland should be tacked on to the end of an English Bill?
With regard to the right hon. and learned Gentleman's announcement on Tuesday night about the future, or lack of one, of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee, has he looked recently at Standing Order No. 130, which provides:
Select committees shall be appointed to examine expenditure, administration and policy of the principal government departments",
including the Scottish Office? As a distinguished lawyer, the Leader of the House must know that the word "shall" is mandatory. What right does he have to abrogate the Standing Orders of the House? Does he intend to introduce an amendment to them?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: The hon. Gentleman will recall that the latter matter was discussed fully in the debate on my birthday last year—20 December. I cannot add anything to the analysis then undertaken.
The hon. Gentleman will recognise that there is at least a separate part of the Bill on the Health Service which deals with matters in this country, whereas those for the Principality of Wales are subsumed in the provisions for England. So he has some blessing.

Sir John Stokes: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, since the televising of our proceedings, our conduct has become


worse and the noise much greater, especially in the past few days and when the cameras are still on? When the cameras are off, quiet descends almost at once. Are we to have this for a further five and a half months, or is there some means by which we can modify our original decision to have this experiment?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I know that my hon. Friend has been a consistent advocate of that point. Another equally consistent advocate is the hon. Gentleman who is sitting bearded on the Opposition Benches.

Mr. Andrew Faulds: I am most obliged.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: He is not notorious for the quietude with which he conducts himself, so noise emanates from some quarters whether we are on television or not. It must be said that one of the more striking features is that much of the noise that blocks out discussion in this Chamber does not come through on the television screen outside. It may behove hon. Members who are disposed to be noisy to recollect that they are doing themselves no good by straining their lungs to such an extent.

Mr. Faulds: I am most grateful for that commercial from the Leader of the House. Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that in Tuesday's debate on the economy the Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke from 4·13 pm to 4·59 pm? Does he realise that that operation was carried out to prevent any other hon. Member getting in on television transmission time, which terminated at 5 pm on that day? Is he aware that that can only give substance to the suspicion that the Government have established a little, secret body to try to find ways of abusing television transmission time in the House? Will he accept from his nearest and dearest that, were he Prime Minister, we should not have to suffer such deceit and deviousness, and there would be a great deal—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Will the hon. Gentleman, who is an experienced and responsible hon. Member, please withdraw that remark about the Prime Minister?

Mr. Faulds: Of course, Sir. To oblige you, Mr. Speaker, and because I should not have said them, I withdraw those two words. However, I maintain the principle that the Leader of the House would have been an admirable Prime Minister.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am not sure that I am fully qualified to compete with the hon. Gentleman in offering commercials as it is a matter to which he has devoted his professional life. It is not right to conclude that the speech of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer was directed to the objectives that the hon. Gentleman has in mind. The House will recollect that my right hon. Friend was interrupted frequently and that he gave way frequently, thereby adding to the already interesting quality of his speech. One should not look for conspiracies among Conservative Members, but rather among Opposition Members.

Sir Fergus Montgomery: Does my right hon. and learned Friend recollect that when I asked last Thursday whether we could have a debate on the plight of war widows he told me to await the Adjournment debate later that evening? As nothing of importance came out of that debate, and in view of the

strong feeling among hon. Members of all parties about the plight of war widows, will he tell us when we shall have a debate on that important issue?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am afraid that I cannot add further to what my hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces said in response to the debate last week.

Mr. Donald Coleman (Neath): The right hon and learned Gentleman will be aware that the exciting events in eastern Europe are of great interest to hon. Members and to the public outside. In his previous incarnation, he will also have been aware of the considerable efforts made by the Council of Europe to bring about those changes. Does he think that it is now possible for the Government to consider giving a little more attention to the matters of the Council of Europe and to initiate a debate in the House on the work of the Council of Europe at regular intervals?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: The range of matters relevant to eastern Europe can be discussed during tomorrow's debate. I do not think that many hon. Members would challenge the importance in that context of the work being done by the Council of Europe and others. The hon. Gentleman may remember that it has been one of the central places in which the agreement on transfrontier broadcasting has been hammered out to the benefit of countries beyond the Community and throughout those represented at the Council of Europe.

Mr. William Hague: Will my right hon. and learned Friend find time for a debate on the future of rural England? Does he agree that the problems of particular parts of the country and of urban areas are often discussed but that the problems facing rural areas such as housing and health, shifting populations and farm incomes are interconnected and merit being debated as a whole?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: My hon. Friend represents a substantial part of rural England and he is entitled to make that point. I shall try to bear it in mind.

Mr. Andrew Welsh: Surely the price of having no Select Committee on Scottish Affairs is that Parliament does not have an adequate means of scrutiny over the Scottish Office or of dealing with important Scottish matters, such as the National Health Service, the steel and fishing industries, nuclear dumping and other issues which would be sent to that Committee. Since the official Opposition have an automatic right to call a debate on that issue but are apparently scared to do so, would the Leader of the House consider providing Government time for a debate? Has the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred to columns 715–16 of Hansard for yesterday and seen Mr. Speaker's ruling that he is bound by the Standing Orders as they are and that he can
rule only on the basis of the guidelines that have been laid down"?—[Official Report, 29 November 1989; Vol. 162, e715.]
The Leader of the House has duties with regard to that. Will he now implement Standing Order No. 130 which makes it mandatory to create a Select Committee on Scottish Affairs? Will he also obey the ruling by Mr. Speaker and create that Select Committee now?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I have immense respect for any ruling by Mr. Speaker. The one referred to by the hon.


Member was given in a different context. That point was discussed in the debate on 20 December last year. I cannot add anything to the conclusions then arrived at.

Mr. Kenneth Warren: Further to the question by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), may I press my right hon. and learned Friend harder on the subject of the ECGD policy which the Government are to announce? Bearing in mind the correspondence that I have had with him and with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, will he give an assurance that, at the minimum, there will be a statement on the Floor of the House?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: The impression that I have already formed of the importance of that subject is fortified by my hon. Friend's support. I shall represent the importance of the point all the more vigorously to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.
Mr. Robert Parry (Liverpool, Riverside): The Leader of the House will have seen early-day motion 81 concerning the proposed closure of the British American Tobacco company factory in Liverpool with the loss of 500 jobs. It has been signed by 134 hon. Members.
[That this House deplores the announcement by the British American Tobacco Company of the closure of their Liverpool factory, four weeks before Christmas, with the loss of 500 jobs; notes that British American Tobacco company's latest annual report shows a projected profit of £2 billion; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to have urgent talks with the British American Tobacco Company in an attempt to put together a regional investment package which will avert the closure in the Liverpool, Riverside constituency which has the highest unemployment level in England, Scotland and Wales.]
Will he ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to meet me and other Labour Members next week to discuss the matter, bearing in mind the horrendous economic effect that it will have on the community?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am familiar with the terms of the early-day motion. As the hon. Gentleman points out, it is certainly a matter for regret, but, at heart, it is a commercial decision by the company. I understand that officials from the Department of Trade and Industry have been in touch with the company about its plans for the future of the factory. The company intends to offer the factory free of charge to the Merseyside development corporation, which will arrange for counselling and other assistance to minimise the effects of the closure. I shall bring the hon. Gentleman's intervention to the attention of my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Steve Norris: As my right hon. and learned Friend will be aware, there have been disturbing reports recently about the failure of the licensing system established under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, particularly with regard to the Huntingdon research centre. In view of the considerable disquiet expressed on both sides of the House when the Bill was debated about the efficacy of the licensing system, will my right hon. and learned Friend find time in the near future for a debate on that urgent subject which concerns many people on an all-party basis?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I understand the importance that many hon. Members attach to this subject. I have to confess that my imputed omniscience does not extend to a detailed knowledge of the point that my hon. Friend raised, but I shall see that it is taken into account by my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Michael J. Martin: May we have a debate next week on the poll tax in Scotland, particularly as it affects local authorities? The Leader of the House may not know that Strathclyde has been forced to send out 300,000 warnings to people in the region saying that if the poll tax is not paid sheriffs' officers could be calling at their doors. Surely we do not want that to happen at Christmas or thereafter.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: Certainly local authorities in Scotland are proposing to make use of the available powers to collect arrears from those who persist in not paying the community charge, but the great majority of people are paying it, even in the areas that the hon. Gentleman talks about. The most effective answer would be for those affected to respond by paying promptly the tax for which they are liable. It is important not to get reports of supposedly high non-payment levels out of perspective.

Mr. Michael Latham: Regarding early-day motion 2 on war widows' pensions—
[That this House recognises the unfair treatment of the war widows of the servicemen who retired before 31st March 1973 and those widows who married their husbands after their retirement from the armed forces both prior and subsequent to the 6th April 1978; and urges Her Majesty's Government to remove these artificial time bars in order that all war widows and widows of servicemen may receive the current rate for those pensions irrespective of the date of their husbands' retirement or the date of their marriage.]
—will my right hon. and learned Friend reflect on the old saying that "If you are in a hole, you should stop digging"? Since the Government's position on this matter cannot be defended, will my right hon. and learned Friend arrange to change it next week?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: My hon. Friend has repeated a well-known proposition that formed the text of a newspaper leading article earlier this week. I shall certainly —because I cannot do otherwise—remind my right hon. Friend of the importance that my hon. Friend and others attach to this subject. I cannot say more than that.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman reconsider the reply that he gave my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham)? Is it not time we had a debate on British manufacturing industry? The right hon. and learned Gentleman has argued that the last Labour Government were responsible for job losses. He must have a short memory. Is he not aware that had the Labour Government at the time not taken over those industries there would have been no industries left in this country, because private enterprise was collapsing? Had that Government not underpinned those industries there would have been massive redundancies on a scale never seen before. Now that the Government—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's question must be about the business for next week.

Mr. Heffer: I am aware of that, Mr. Speaker, but the right hon. and learned Gentleman argued a case. I am just making the point—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that he cannot make points of that kind at business questions. He must ask a question about next week's business.

Mr. Heffer: I am getting to the point: if the right hon. and learned Gentleman makes out that case, we had better have a full-scale debate in the House so that we can discuss the matter seriously and clearly state that the Labour Government were responsible for saving industries but that this Government have been responsible for destroying them.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: The hon. Gentleman may have forgotten that the topic to which he refers was extensively debated on at least two days during the debate on the Loyal Address. It has been debated in the House with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister today.
There is a powerful case to be made to the contrary of that put by the hon. Gentleman, and the Government are only too willing to make it. It is the recovery of private enterprise, not dependent on state aid on the scale of that offered by the last Labour Government, that has been at the heart of the recovery taking place in our manufacturing capability.

Mr. Patrick Cormack: Will my right hon. and learned Friend arrange to have a debate soon, preferably next week, on the monstrous proposals by London Underground to create one of the largest underground stations in the world within yards of this Palace and to turn the whole of Parliament square into a building site for about four years? That would be wholly unacceptable to most hon. Members. May we have an early statement to the effect that the Government will not back the Bill in question?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: My hon. Friend is adopting an unusually straightforward and over-simplified approach to the issue. Important works related to the structure of the Palace of Westminister are taking place which, as he knows, have to be carried forward. There are also important projects for the improvement of transport in the city of London which must be seriously considered. We should not conclude too dismissively that it is impossible to reconcile those objectives in a sensible fashion. My hon. Friend is right to underline the hazards which must be addressed, but I hope that he will not conclude that nothing can be done to reconcile the two objectives.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The reason for business questions is to ask about the business next week, not to make general points. There are two statements and an important debate to follow business questions today.

Mr. Ron Brown: Since the Government claim to support human rights, does the Leader of the House agree that there should be a special debate next week about the case involving Tarek Sharief, a Libyan who is being held hostage in this country due to the misconduct of the Sussex police—a force which I do not particularly like, but that is another matter? Will that case be properly investigated in a debate and will the Leader of the House reply? The Libyan leadership have

made it clear that they are willing to intervene to help Terry Waite, John McCarthy, Roger Cooper and others, provided the Government allow Tarek Sharief to go free and obtain his passport as he has every right to do.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I cannot comment on the particular case raised by the hon. Gentleman or his relative degrees of affection for different police forces. I leave that to him. I shall bring the case to the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary.

Mr. Bob Dunn: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that many Conservative Members are concerned about the events taking place in Romania? Will he arrange for an early debate on eastern Europe during prime time so that we can put forward our views?

Mr. Tony Banks: There is one tomorrow.

Mr. Dunn: I want one other than tomorrow's debate in prime time.

Mr. Banks: Why?

Mr. Dunn: Because I said so. Will the Leader of the House also consider making a strong recommendation to the Government that every honour and award given to the Romanian Government and the Ceausescu family—which is the same thing—should be immediately cancelled and withdrawn?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: My hon. Friend's latter point has been made before in the House and no doubt he can develop it during tomorrow's debate. To have a full day available for debate on eastern Europe tomorrow seems close to making time available in prime time.

Mr. Robert N. Wareing: Will the Secretary of State for Health make a statement to the House about why speech therapists have to subsist on such appallingly low pay? This group of professional people, who are highly qualified after four years studying for a degree at university, are expected to accept a pay rise well below the inflation rate caused by the Government's policies. May we have a statement so that we can question the Secretary of State on why justice cannot be obtained for these people?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I understand the hon. Gentleman drawing attention to the importance of work done by speech therapists, but he should recollect that in the past 10 years, since 1979, speech therapists have benefited from a real terms pay increase of 19 per cent. and the number of speech therapists, including men, employed in the National Health Service has increased steadily and continues to do so. He knows as well as I that pay negotiations for 1989–90 are continuing.

Mr. Hugh Dykes: Since the Select Committee's report on EC scrutiny procedures for the House and its recommendations have been published, will the Leader of the House reassure us that the usual fate of such reports will not befall this one, bearing in mind that even those Members who are enthusiastic about our membership of the Community, such as me, want to see effective scrutiny in this House? In view of the urgency of this matter and the need for proper EC scrutiny and


surveillance, will my right hon. and learned Friend assure the House that the report's recommendations will not be put off for weeks, months or even years?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I issued a statement today explaining that I cannot respond immediately to the individual recommendations of the report. I am pleased that the report has taken account of a number of recommendations put forward by my predecessor. I shall discuss the report with my colleagues because it involves a matter which touches on many Departments. I shall come to the House with the Government's response to the Committee's recommendations so that we can proceed with the implementation of such changes as the House regards as appropriate.

Mr. Tom Cox: Now that the proceedings of the House are televised, when will consideration be given to those of our constituents who, sadly, are confined to wheelchairs as a result of various disabilities so that they can benefit from having access to the House? Is the Leader of the House aware that if meetings are held in the Committee Rooms in Westminster hall, it is virtually impossible for such people to attend them? When are we to see the Government giving priority to disabled people who want to come to this place to see their Members of Parliament or to attend Committee meetings, which they are entitled to attend?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I understand the importance of the issue that has been raised by the hon. Gentleman. I shall apply myself to consideration of it as I should.

Mr. James Cran: Will my right hon. and learned Friend consider seriously the requests which have been made already by my hon. Friends the Members for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) and for Hastings and Rye (Mr. Warren) for an early statement and a debate on the future of the ECGD, especially against the background of the rumours that now abound that short-term cover and, perhaps more importantly, long-term project cover, will be withdrawn, with the adverse effect that this would have on the northern economy?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: My hon. Friend is the third of my hon. Friends to draw attention to this important matter. There is a matching number of Ministers from the responsible Department sitting on the Government Front Bench. I have no doubt that they have heard what my hon. Friend has said.

Mr. Allen Adams: As today is St. Andrew's day, it might be appropriate to ask the Leader of the House whether next week he will initiate a debate on the Scottish economy. It might be appropriate also to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman, more specifically, to intervene in the debate on the future of Scotland's lowland airports, an issue which has been causing concern for the past four or five months without any resolution being achieved. Will he give the House the opportunity to discuss in detail and in depth the future of Glasgow airport?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I cannot promise to respond promptly to the requirements of every saint's day in the House, especially as I think that I am right in saying that today is All Saints Day—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I am sorry, tomorrow.
I think that I shall be on rather more certain ground if I deal with the hon. Gentleman's question about Glasgow airport. As he knows, the time has expired for the completion of consideration of the representations that have been received on the matter. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State will be announcing his conclusions as soon as that announcement is compatible with the proper assessment of the arguments.

Mr. Rupert Allason: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that tomorrow morning I shall have the honour of presenting a petition to the House on behalf of the constituents of Torbay and visitors to the constituency, which has been signed by about 10,500 people, on the subject of the outfall of raw, untreated sewage into the sea of south Devon? Will my right hon. and learned Friend find time during next week, or beyond, for an urgent debate on this appalling and continuing pollution?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I can understand that my hon. Friend regards it is an honour to present a petition on that subject. I cannot guarantee a debate on it immediately, but I shall bring the matter to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment.

Mr. Eddie Loyden: May I press the Leader of the House on the issue raised by my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, Riverside (Mr. Parry) and for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heller)? Is he aware of the effect that the closure of the BAT factory will have on a community that has already suffered as a result of the decimation of community industries? One of our main concerns—this is why a debate should take place—is that many of the jobs will go to Brussels. Is this a foretaste of what will happen when the Single European Act 1992 takes effect? Instead of jobs being created in Britain, will we see an exodus of jobs to the rest of Europe in the interests of international cartels that hold monopoly power over our industries?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I understand the concern of hon. Members and the community about the factory. That is why we have taken the steps that I have already mentioned. It is wrong to conclude that the prospect of opening competition in the European Community will represent a threat to job opportunities in this country. Britain has been creating jobs at a faster rate than our Community partners and investment is being attracted to this country on a considerable scale, and there is no reason why that should not continue.

Mr. David Tredinnick: Given the problems facing the British shoe industry, will my right hon. and learned Friend provide time next week for an urgent debate? Is he aware that since 1987 in Hinckley, Barwell and Earl Shilton in my constituency, the industry has been halved from 30 to 15 factories? Is he further aware that there is widespread disquiet about the enforcement of existing regulations for imported products? There is now the prospect of the whole of eastern Europe opening up to trade with Britain, which will create new problems, especially if Poland is included in any trading agreement. We must consider those problems urgently.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to a number of factors affecting the outlook for


the boot and shoe industry. I cannot promise an early debate, but I am sure that it is a topic to which the House will wish to return.

Mr. Dave Nellist: Why are the Government frightened of allowing the Secretary of State for Health to make a statement later today and why are they frightened of having a debate in Government time next week on the 11-week-old ambulance dispute? Could it be the 6 million-strong petition or the tens of thousands of pounds collected every day, which demonstrate universal public sympathy? Are the Government trying to sweep under the carpet individual incidents such as that of the Army sergeant in Hertfordshire who earlier this week was returned to his barracks at Chichester because of his sympathy with the ambulance crews and his recognition of the Army's inability to provide a 999 service? After 11 weeks of dispute, is the right hon. and learned Gentleman prepared to head into Christmas with the lockout of ambulance crews putting lives at risk? Where is the Secretary of State for Health?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: No topic has been more regularly considered by this House, both before and after the recent parliamentary break, than the ambulance dispute. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Health spoke to the House at length during a debate on the National Health Service only a few days ago. There will be a further opportunity to return to the issue when the House debates the National Health Service again next week. I assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. and learned Friend will continue to keep the House informed of developments, as he has done to date.

Mr. John Browne: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that last year there were some 8,000 serious accidents in schools, yet the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which requires first aid cover for companies and even for banks, does not require such cover in schools?
Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that during the last Session early-day motion No. 174 was signed by 336 hon. Members, which is more than 50 per cent. of the entire House of Commons?
[That this House applauds the Approved Code of Practice which followed the Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations 1981 (Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974) and which requires that, even in low hazard industries, every employer of more than 150 people should ensure the on site availability of a qualified first aider; believes the same requirement should apply to children in schools; further recognises the value of teaching first or emergency aid in schools; and applauds the initiative of the St. John Ambulance in issuing its publication Emergency Aid in Schools, which, accompanied by a video, shows how children can be taught a basic course between the ages of six and twelve years so that they are competent in assessing emergency situations, restarting breathing and circulation, dealing with bleeding, shock and unconsciousness especially resulting from drug or solvent abuse and burns and scalds and so qualifying for the St. John Ambulance Three Cross Emergency Aid Award.]
Will he please make time for a debate on that matter in this Session of Parliament?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I know that that topic was raised during the last Session, as well as in this Session. I shall

draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science to the points made by my hon. Friend.

Mr. Geoffrey Robinson: Is the Leader of the House aware that since the suspension of the serious crime squad in the west midlands—a step almost unprecedented in such circumstances—there have come to light an increasing number of possible serious miscarriages of justice? Several of those arise in my constituency, and I know that there are others in constituencies of hon. Members on both sides of the House. In those circumstances, does not the matter require urgent and serious debate by the House, and can the right hon. and learned Gentleman find time for a debate?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am not sure that I can provide time for such a debate in the near future, but if and in so far as those points fall within the terms of reference of the inquiry already taking place, I shall bring them to the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary.

Mr. Tony Baldry: Further to the comments of the shadow Leader of the House and his requests about business next week, will my right hon. and learned Friend take on board the fact that many Conservative Members would welcome a statement on Ethiopia because it would give us an opportunity to compliment the Government on their prompt action in these tragic circumstances by allocating £54 million in relief aid to Ethiopia this year and some 17,000 tonnes of food aid in response to the position as and when the need arises?
My right hon. and learned Friend will know that the situation is not new; it has existed for some time. Conservative Members have been asking intelligent questions for some time and my right hon. and learned Friend gave a full answer to a question on 19 October. Is it not sickening that the only time that the Opposition take an interest in the issue is when they see television coverage of it, in the hope that they may pick up a little credit by international ambulance chasing?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I had better not follow my hon . Friend too far down that path or I shall precipitate a debate myself. My hon. Friend is right to remind the House that that topic has been constantly in the mind of, and has received effective action from, Her Majesty's Government during the many tragic years that it has persisted. It is right that it should be discussed by the House from time to time, and I shall bear that in mind.

Mr. Bob Cryer: Will the Leader of the House withdraw Tuesday's business, the Education (Student Loans) Bill, which many of us find extremely odious, and let us have a general debate on education so that we can describe how Tory-controlled Bradford Council is falling short on the repair and adequate maintenance of schools in a local authority which has 600 temporary classrooms and rising school rolls? We could then press the case for more expenditure on permanent extensions to schools to prevent, for example, the closure of three temporary classrooms and young children being bussed a round journey of eight miles at Buttershaw first school in my constituency.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I do not propose to withdraw the business that has already been announced for Tuesday,


but I am always ready to find an opportunity for the House to commend examples of Conservative success in Bradford.

Mr. Max Madden: Will the Leader of the House arrange for the Secretary of State for the Environment to make a statement next week on the plans of several water companies, including Yorkshire Water, to introduce a flat-rate charge for water and sewerage—in effect, a water poll tax? How can it be right that a pensioner living in a small house with an outside toilet should pay the same for water and sewerage as a millionaire living in a mansion with 10 bathrooms and an indoor swimming pool? Will the Leader of the House force water companies to reveal to the public and to their consumers their plans in relation to the introduction of a water poll tax?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: The hon. Gentleman will know that one of the objectives of the privatisation of the water industry is to diversify the methods by which charges are imposed for water consumption, including the possible use of meters as one method of apportioning charges fairly. I cannot respond more fully than that.

Mr. Keith Vaz: May we have a statement early next week on the issue of compensation for the Christmas Island veterans? I am sure that the Leader of the House will have had an opportunity to study early-day motion 37 which concerns my constituent Mr. John Hall, who is suffering from leukaemia.
[That this House condemns the Government's policy towards compensation for ex-servicemen, like Mr. John Hall of Belgrave, Leicester, who served on Christmas Island during the nuclear tests in the 1950s and who as a result of this are suffering from the effects of exposure to radiation,. and calls upon the Government to seize this opportunity to show compassion and justice by awarding substantial compensation to our Christmas Island veterans without further delay.]
The Leader of the House will also have heard the statement by the Under-Secretary of State for Defence Procurement this week. There is confusion about the circumstances in which compensation will be payable. Therefore, will he arrange for a statement next week so that the relevant Minister can be questioned on that important issue?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I cannot comment on the case raised by the hon. Gentleman. The Government are ready to pay appropriate compensation whenever the Crown's legal liability is established, but we see no reason to make special compensation arrangements for test veterans.

Mr. George Howarth: Has the Leader of the House had an opportunity to read motion 12 on the Order Paper, which refers to the shipping of dangerous goods? Is he aware that in a recent Adjournment debate on that subject the Minister for Aviation and Shipping assured me that time would be given to debate that subject in the House. Will he find time as soon as possible for us to debate that serious subject?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I cannot answer that question forthwith, but I shall study the implications of the undertaking that was given.

Mr. Harry Barnes: Has the Leader of the House seen early-day motion 98 on safety in the Channel tunnel?
[That this House notes with deep concern the professional anxieties of the Fire Brigades Union regarding safety in the Channel Tunnel and accepts that hundreds, if not thousands, of lives would be at risk in the event of a deliberate or accidental fire or explosion in the tunnel; therefore calls on the Eurotunnel Group to accept the principle of the segregation of vehicles and their passengers as a means of improving safety arrangements; and calls upon the Government to initiate an urgent inquiry into the whole issue of safety in the Channel Tunnel with a view to preventing a major catastrophe.]
It has been signed spontaneously by 14 Members and no doubt, when we get organised, it will be signed by many more hon. Members on both sides of the House. It asks that there should be a division in the Channel tunnel between vehicles and their passengers. The Fire Brigades Union and many others find the present arrangements dangerous and want the Government to take a strong line on the matter. May we have a debate on the subject?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I am not sure that a debate would be a useful way of ventilating that topic, whether or not the signatures to the early-day motion were spontaneous or organised. The proposed designs for the Channel tunnel must be approved by the intergovernmental commission, which itself is advised by the safety authority, which is an independent body. That should reassure the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Tony Banks: I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to early-day motion 112.
[That this House notes with concern the growing levels of inefficiency, unreliability and unpleasantness experienced by travellers on the London Underground; agrees with the general condemnation of the Underground Service expressed by London honourable Members of all parties who responded in the recent opinion poll commissioned by London Transport; and calls upon the Government to halt the descent into transport chaos in London by producing an integrated public transport strategy backed up with the necessary capital investment which will provide Londoners with the service they deserve and require.]
It sets out the extreme concern felt by my hon. Friends about the state of London's Underground system today. May we have an early debate on that subject, which concerns Londoners both inside and outside the House? When did the Leader of the House last travel on the Underground during the rush hour? Will he use what good offices he has left to entice the Prime Minister out of her bunker so that she can travel on the Underground once during the rush hour? If she did so, something would then be done.

Sir Geoffrey Howe: I confess that I travel on the Underground during the rush hour or out of it less frequently than I used to do. I appreciate the view expressed by the hon. Gentleman and by my hon. Friends. The Government have taken a great deal of firm action to assist London Underground, and efforts are being made to improve its services. Investment is already at a record level. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced recently substantial increases in financial support for London]


Regional Transport. In addition, the Jubilee line is to be extended at a cost of about £1 billion, which will bring additional benefits to those using the Underground.

Mr. Alun Michael: Will the Leader of the House explain in his own words why the matter of the Health Service in Wales has been subsumed in the main body of the National Health Serice and Community Care Bill? Are the Government trying to bury it, especially in the light of the admission by the Secretary of State for Wales that special considerations must be taken into account in respect of the Welsh Health Service?
Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman consider the terms of early-day motion 95?
[That this House notes the considerable time that has elapsed since the Barlow Clowes collapse brought misery and worry for thousands of people, many of whom were elderly individuals who had placed their money in what they believed to be a safe Government-approved investment, and who were shocked to discover its true nature; hopes that early publication of the Ombudsman's report will clearly illuminate the events leading up to the collapse; but notes that apportionment of blame and eventual repayment will come too late for people who should have been able to enjoy security and freedom from worry in their twilight years—some of whom, sadly, have already died—unless the Government now belatedly adopts the pro-active role urged by the Opposition by launching a lifeboat scheme and drawing together all those with a legitimate interest in the compensation of investors to achieve an early payout without further delay or unproductive litigation.]
Will he ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to make an early statement on the Barlow Clowes scandal, and may we have a positive, proactive stance by the Government, which would give some hope to the many elderly people who, through no fault of their own, are suffering the effects of that company's collapse long after it was first brought to the attention of this House?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: It is difficult to respond to several substantive points together when dealing with the business of the House. As to the hon. Gentleman's second point, all right hon. and hon. Members share his concern about the implications of the collapse of Barlow Clowes. The draft report of the Parliamentary Commissioner is now being considered and will receive a response as soon as possible. It would not be appropriate for the House to debate that matter until the report has been finalised. However, clearly it is an important matter.
As to the Health Service in Wales, neither I nor anyone else can alter the Principality's constitutional status as it was established by Henry VIII. However, we can be assured that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales will continue to take the energetic care that he always does of the Welsh Health Service.

Mr. Richard Holt: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Was the hon. Member present in the Chamber when next week's business was announced?

Mr. Holt: I have been in my place since 2.30 pm, Mr. Speaker, but I have twice been unsuccessful in trying to catch your eye.

Mr. Speaker: In that case, I call the hon. Member.

Mr. Holt: Will my right hon. and learned Friend reflect on the request made by the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Cryer) for an education debate so that the House may discuss the Cleveland city technology college, which has been a great success despite the pernicious and vicious attitude of the local education authority, which even seeks to ban other schools from playing soccer against l0-year-olds?

Sir Geoffrey Howe: If the House has another opportunity to debate education, my hon. Friend will be well placed to repeat the important point that he has just made.

Rover Group plc

The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Nicholas Ridley): The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General into the sale of Rover Group to British Aerospace is to be the subject of a hearing by the Public Accounts Committee on 4 December. It would not therefore be normal practice for a statement on the subject to be made in the House in advance of that hearing. However, in the light of today's regrettable disclosure of a confidential memorandum submitted to the Committee, I feel under no such constraint.
The report focuses on three broad aspects of the sale. The first is the exclusivity of negotiation granted to BAe. I need not remind the House of the public controversy and uncertainty created by the 1986 discussions with the Ford Motor Company about its interest in acquiring Austin Rover. It had a serious, detrimental effect on the business, and the Rover board and the Government were determined that the handling of any future privatisation talks should take full account of that experience. Both were convinced that a public auction for the company would be commercially very damaging, and for that reason, following the approach by BAe, it was decided to grant exclusivity for a limited period to see whether a satisfactory agreement could be reached.
Secondly, the report questions the adequacy of the £150 million consideration eventually agreed. I should remind hon. Members of the historical background of Rover Group prior to privatisation. It had already cost the taxpayer £2.9 billion of public funds; that money had been swallowed up in repeated losses while in public ownership. Moreover, the company was dependent on the assurances given by successive Governments in respect of its obligations to banks and trade creditors. That contingent liability on the taxpayer stood at £1.6 billion in March 1988 and was projected to rise over the corporate plan period, because the group's heavy capital expenditure programme outstripped cash generated by forecast trading profits.
Thirdly, the report examines the way in which the negotiations with BAe should have been conducted. Conventional techniques of valuation were clearly inappropriate; it was necessary to approach this as the sale of a going concern, and to strike a reasonable balance between the risks and opportunities confronting BAe as the potential new owners. In that context, I believe that the terms that were eventually agreed represented the best that could be achieved.
Having dealt with the main issues in the NAO's published report, I shall now turn to the confidential memorandum. It is necessary here to recall the fundamental terms of the deal, and the process of their approval. For the business to be privatised successfully, the inheritance of its dismal trading record under public ownership had to be eliminated. In accordance with the state-aid procedures of the European Community, that necessitated exhaustive negotiations with the Commission of an appropriate package.
In July 1988, the Commission agreed a cash injection comprising £469 million in recognition of RG's historic debt, and £78 million in support of its future investment programme in the assisted areas. The Commission was prepared to sanction that aid because Rover Group would

henceforth be exposed to the full financial discipline of the market, and because its plans envisaged the elimination of surplus capacity.
When my noble Friend Lord Young disclosed those terms to British Aerospace, the company made it clear that a deal could not be struck on that basis. Four further items were therefore agreed with BAe. First, as BAe wanted to acquire 100 per cent. of the company, the Government agreed a grant of up to £9.5 million towards BAe's costs in buying out the small private shareholding. BAe subsequently bought out those shareholders on terms agreed by itself, Rover Group and their respective advisers to be fair and reasonable.
The second item was a payment of £1.5 million for Rover's privatisation costs. As it was, in effect, Her Majesty's Government who were causing RG to incur those costs, it was only right that Her Majesty's Government should pay them. The third was the waiver of an earlier £5 million contribution that BAe had volunteered towards the Columbus polar platform programme. In the event, that programme is now undergoing thorough revision, so the whole issue of an industrial contribution is being re-examined.
Finally, the Government agreed with BAe that the precise timing of the payment of the £150 million consideration would follow the clarification of certain tax matters. This delay was time-limited to 31 March 1990.
Those items were addressed where relevant in estimates and reports to Parliament. The Government fully recognised that these additional arrangements were material to the Public Accounts Committee investigation, and from the outset full details were volunteered to the National Audit Office.
The Government took the view that these concessions were essentially separate matters consistent with the terms of the Commission's approval. If the EC Commission now wishes to examine them, the Government will be happy to co-operate.
I believe that these arrangements were the least that were necessary to secure the successful transfer of the Rover Group to the private sector, which was essential for the future welfare of the Rover Group and those who work in it, as well as being the best deal available for the taxpayer.

Mr. Gordon Brown: Why were we not told until now about the additional subsidies of £38 million that were given to British Aerospace? Why did the Secretary of State have to be dragged to the House to make those admissions? How does he justify concealing the subsidies on the ground of commercial confidence when the commercial arrangement was not between British Aerospace and a private company but between British Aerospace and the British taxpayer? As it was £38 million of our money, did we not have a right to know?
As for the additional concealed subsidies, will the Secretary of State now confirm that they include offering to buy up to £9 million worth of shares in Rover only to give them back to British Aerospace for nothing; £5 million for British Aerospace's subscription to the European Space Agency which has nothing to do with the Rover Group; potentially £250 million as a reduction in the compensation payable if Rover were sold on in five years and even deferring the final date for payment for up to 18 months, knowing that a deferred price is a lower price?
Is not the real reason why the Government asked for details of the sale to be kept confidential not a commercial one, because the Minister has not made a commercial case, but the party political embarrassment that would be caused by the revelation of those subsidies?
In those circumstances, given the additional level of subsidy—£38 million—how could his Department have thought that there was no necessity even to inform the European Commission that those subsidies were paid? How can the Prime Minister tell other countries in good faith that they should abolish hidden subsidies before she joins the exchange rate mechanism when she has allowed exactly those hidden subsidies?
Now that the Comptroller has named four other companies that were interested in the Rover Group, and, according to the lunchtime news, one has said that it put its interest in writing, how can the Secretary of State defend the statement of the former Minister, Lord Young, that
British Aerospace was the only company to approach me to buy Rover".
especially when we now know that Ministers were advised by their own advisers, Baring Brothers, that they should create a competitive market?
As we now know that most of Rover's debts were written off by the Government, that assets in shares in other companies were known by the Government to be worth more than £100 million, that surplus sites that were thrown in are are now worth more than £33 million and that Rover's forecasts were not for losses but for profits totalling £400 million over the next five years—money that could have gone to the taxpayer—how can the Secretary of State now justify selling Rover for only £150 million?
I want a direct answer to this question: is it right that, so far, little or nothing has yet been paid by British Aerospace despite the fact that British Aerospace has made substantial profits from Rover and has already sold assets worth £126 million? Is the issue not the past investment to make Rover profitable, but what the taxpayer and the public could have gained in future as a result of that public investment?
Finally, in those circumstances, how can the Minister possibly deny the serious charges of mismanagement, incompetence and a serious waste of national resources by the Government? Is it not the case that they were interested in privatising Rover at any price and at any cost rather than securing what is in the national interest? Is it not time for open government in this matter and is it not the case that our only hope for open government is a Labour Government?

Mr. Ridley: The items that I mentioned in my statement today were addressed, wherever relevant, in the estimates and reports to Parliament. Full details were made available to the Comptroller and Auditor General when he started his inquiries, as was completely correct. The House is not being told now; the Public Accounts Committee was told before. Nor have I been dragged to the House. I volunteered to make the statement for the convenience of the House. I have made an open statement, so I reject any suggestion that I have sought to conceal anything.
British Aerospace wished to acquire 100 per cent. of the company. We were not in a position to sell it 100 per cent. of the company because there were minority shareholders. It was prefectly right and proper that we should have

enabled it to buy out those minority shareholders, because it was much more simple procedurally for it to do so than for the Government to do so directly.
The £5 million for the space project was nothing to do with the motor industry and therefore, in our opinion, nothing to do with the deal reached with the Commission.
The hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) seems to be unaware that the reduction in the writing-off of debt, which the Commission insisted be made during negotiations with it, reflected itself in a reduction of what the company would have had to pay back in the event of a sale within five years of the assets and trademarks of the Rover Group. It was right that that figure should have been reduced commensurate with the reduction in the injection of cash made by the Government.
As I have told the House, we had reached agreement with the Commission when these additional items became necessary. The late payment was mentioned in the statement by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), the then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, on 14 July last year. We took the view that the other items to which I have referred were consistent with the Commission's terms, and that as they did not affect the competitiveness of the Rover Group's production disclosure was not necessary. Any question of reopening the procedure would have jeopardised the deal.
As to the last point made by the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East, far from being a rip-off, let me quote what the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) said when the deal was announced by my right hon. and learned Friend. He said:
How is it that British Aerospace has now accepted £250 million less than Ministers initially offered?
The hon. Gentleman continued:
Is it true that institutional shareholders have already been telephoning to express their objections?"—[Official Report, 14 July 1988; Vol. 137, c. 613.]
The allegation then was that we had screwed British Aerospace too hard. Now the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East is saying that the deal was far too soft. The only conclusion that we can draw from that is that it is easy to be wise after the event and that the hon. Gentleman is suffering from an overdose of hindsight.
I should add that no payment has been received. British Aerospace has until the end of March next year.

Mr. Michael Grylls: Will my right hon. Friend accept that it is obvious from the rather synthetic annoyance of the Opposition that they cannot bear the fact that, because of the Government's successful policies, Rover is now a successful company in the private sector? When they were in office, all they did was pour more and more taxpayers' money into it, and it lost more and more year after year. We have been successful with it.
Is it not true that the financial terms agreed between Rover and British Aerospace were hugely advantageous for the taxpayer, who has been relieved of an enormous contingent liability of £1·8 billion? That must be to the advantage of the taxpayer.

Mr. Ridley: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The deal was of great advantage to the taxpayer in staunching the losses that the Rover Group had incurred. The deal was struck in July 1988, but the only deal that could have been done was one agreed by the buyer and seller. In this case, the buyer had grave doubts about whether it wished


to proceed, and it almost aborted the sale at the last minute. It did not show any signs whatever that it was not taking great risks in taking on the Rover Group.

Mr. Peter Snape: Is there no limit to the Secretary of State's arrogance on these matters? Is he aware that the only reason why he is at the Dispatch Box is to pre-empt the inevitable row that would follow this morning's publication of the memorandum in The Guardian? His whole approach typifies the Government's unethical approach to the disposal of public assets. A more fitting place for his talents would be in a used car lot where, as the usual sweetener, he would throw in the whole car factory.

Mr. Ridley: The hon. Gentleman's style is not appropriate on this occasion. It was correct for the Public Accounts Committee to consider the memorandum confidentially. If the memorandum had not been leaked, the Committee could have considered the matter and concluded whether publication was in the national interest. That would have been far the better way to handle the matter. I regret that the PAC has been pre-empted because that has made the matter more difficult to handle. However, as soon as it happened I took the correct action of coming to the House to make a statement.

Mr. Kenneth Warren: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the openness of his declaration is welcome? Will he further accept that as Chairman of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, which last year conducted extensive inquiries into the purchase of Rover by British Aerospace, I would have found it helpful if the memorandum had been submitted to the Committee in confidence. With regret, I find unacceptable his statement that the conventional valuations were not appropriate. When my right hon. and noble Friend was asked by the Select Committee whether he had put a valuation on the machinery and assets of Rover, it was to our surprise that he replied no. The negotiations could have been handled by the Department much more professionally and I hope that in future that will be the case.

Mr. Ridley: The Committee may wish to follow up the question of what memorandum was put before it, but I was not aware of the point that my hon. Friend raised. The sale was not and could not have been normal. The House will remember when the possibility arose that Rover would be sold to the Ford Motor Company. As a result, there was virtually a public auction. We debated the matter many times in the House but it was impossible to resolve it because of the political temperature. Rover informed everyone involved that the position was extremely damaging to its business and at the time it lost market share. My right hon. and noble Friend had no alternative but to conduct exclusive negotiations with an acceptable British company and only one had expressed interest at that time. [HON. MEMBERS: "Not true."] At that time. After it had been announced that the deal would be negotiated exclusively, other companies expressed interest. It would have been wrong for my right hon. and noble Friend to go back on the undertaking that the negotiations would be exclusive.

Mr. Terry Davis: If the financial arrangements were as straightforward as the Secretary of State suggests and were already available in the estimates presented to the House, why did his Department ask the National Audit Office to leave them out of the report published two days ago?

Mr. Ridley: As I said, we did not wish to draw attention to the arrangements in the July statement because it was important that the Commission should not reopen the whole matter. The matters that I reported were not relevant to the agreement that we made with the Commission. In view of the sensitivity of those facts, I thought it right that the PAC should decide for itself whether it was in the national interest to publish them. I regret that the PAC's right to decide has been pre-empted.

Sir Hal Miller: Does my right hon. Friend recollect that about a month ago he was criticised for not keeping Jaguar British? Today he is criticised for keeping Rover British and for its success. Does he agree that the Opposition have no interest in the success of any British industrial company? Did we hear any request for a statement yesterday about the additional investment in the British motor industry? Will he reconsider his description of the Opposition as being wise after the event? It is clear that they are unable to appreciate the difficulty of valuing what was a bankrupt company trading insolvently under Government guarantees.

Mr. Ridley: The transformation in the health of the Rover Group after many years of decline and massive losses is justification for its sale to the private sector, if ever one were wanted. I agree that the Opposition are now to be described as unwise after the event.

Mr. Dave Nellist: Is the Secretary of State aware that tonight in Coventry many thousands of Rover workers will wonder whether we are witnessing the Government's incompetence or their corruption? Is it not clear that, with £600 million of cancelled debt, £60 million of underselling and the £38 million of back-handers revealed today, the privatisation of Rover was legalised theft? Is he aware that British Aerospace knew in advance of the land values, the value of subsidiary companies such as the Spanish company and Daf and of stocks and shares and is laughing all the way to the bank? The right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit) stayed in the Chamber long enough to make sure that the Prime Minister held her line at Question Time. Why is he not here now to make a statement about his previous role as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry from which he went directly to be chief adviser to the board of directors of British Aerospace? More than any other privatisation deal, this deal stinks to high heaven.

Mr. Ridley: Thousands of Rover workers wandering about Coventry will be grateful that their company is beginning to move ahead, investment is being put into it and the days of its failures and loss-making under public ownership have come to an end. The fulfilment of that goal makes worthwhile the deal that was done to achieve it. For the hon. Gentleman's benefit, to my knowledge no Land Rover assets have been sold.

Mr. Steve Norris: Does my right hon. Friend agree that with hindsight we are all millionaires? Does he further agree that any business man who was


prepared to pay asset value for a company haemorrhaging hundreds of millions of pounds without the slightest realistic prospect of ceasing to do so would be considered insane? Is he aware that those of us who were anxious that the deal should go through were disturbed that at the last minute the board of British Aerospace was so unsure whether the sale should proceed that it delayed the final announcements to be made by the then Secretary of State? Is it not true that when the details of the events are examined it will be clear that according to commercial logic the Government did an exemplary deal in selling Rover to British Aerospace?

Mr. Ridley: I wish to disagree with my hon. Friend in one respect: many hon. Gentlemen, even with the advantage of hindsight, would succeed in losing millions. [HON. MEMBERS: "What did the right hon. Gentleman do?"]

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Ridley: My hon. Friend's other point, that British Aerospace hesitated on the eve of signing the deal, is absolutely true. I can confirm that it nearly decided to abort the takeover because it did not feel that it could live with the risks. It decided to go ahead, which is infinitely to the benefit of the workers and customers of the Rover Group.

Mr. Andrew Smith: Is it not the case that the Secretary of State cannot begin to understand the anger and anxiety of Cowley workers and their families during the whole period of the shameful conduct of the sale? Is it not evident that Conservative party political determination to sell Rover at any price and in any way has counted for everything and that the interests of the country, taxpayers and the work force have counted for nothing? Is it not essential that, in addition to seeing proper accountability to the taxpayer for taxpayers' money, any surplus arising to British Aerospace in this sorry affair should be invested in production and jobs at Cowley, not asset stripped?

Mr. Ridley: The deal has been done and cannot be reopened. I understand that British Aerospace intends to make massive investments in the Rover Group—more than £1 billion—to develop its capacity and model range for the future. That is precisely what the hon. Gentleman asks for.

Mr. Roger King: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the people of the west midlands will contrast this Government's support for the British motor industry and the glittering future that Rover Group now has in the private ownership of BAe with the glittering, wonderful future that the Labour Government gave the Meriden motor cycle co-operative?

Mr. Ridley: Yes. Because of the many changes that have taken place under this Government, the British motor industry is beginning to move ahead and to increase its market share in Britain and throughout the world. We shall see a large increase in motor car production in the years ahead.

Mr. Doug Hoyle: Does the Secretary of State realise that only one Conservative Member, the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Mr. Warren), seems concerned about taxpayers having a fair

deal? [HON. MEMBERS: "We are all concerned about that."] Will the Secretary of State please answer his hon. Friend's questions? Why was the memorandum not put before the Select Committee on Trade and Industry? Is he aware that it is inadequate to answer that the Committee can now inquire into the matter? Does he agree that the memorandum should have been made available at the time? Was the Commission aware that if Rover were resold in the following five years, the group would not have to repay the £650 million, but only £400 million? In view of the disclosures, will the Secretary of State tell BAe that it cannot have until March before paying the £150 million, but must pay without delay because it has benefited from the swindle?

Mr. Ridley: If hon. Gentlemen have taxpayers' interests at heart, they should recognise that the £3·5 billion which was expended on the Rover Group while it was in the public sector was the biggest drain that could ever been placed on taxpayers' shoulders and that from now on Rover Group is beginning to pay tax which is to the taxpayers' benefit. My right hon. and noble Friend who handled the matter appeared before the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, and he must be allowed to give the evidence and produce the papers that he thought appropriate at the time. The hon. Gentleman is not right when he says that that £450 million will have to be repaid. The £650 million was the sum before the Commission reduced the amount which the British Government could give to assuage Rover's debts. As the Commission reduced the sum, it was right that the amount to be repaid should also be reduced.

Sir Giles Shaw: Does my right hon. Friend agree, as one who had a part to play in the developments at Rover at a certain time, that the problem with the company, apart from wholly inherited debt and the fact that it was trading insolvently in all but name, was the fact that the Varley-Marshall agreement entered into by the Labour Government provided never-ending commitment to the Government of the day to stand behind every bill that the company happened to offer? Will he further consider that, while enormous efforts were made to maintain productive investment, this incredibly bankrupt company would have been closed long ago had it not been for the arrangements with BAe? Does my right hon. Friend agree that that was the real alternative offered?

Mr. Ridley: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He talks of what came to be known as the Varley-Marshall-Joseph undertakings and they totalled £1·6 billion by March last year. I am extremely glad that they will never be known as the Varley-Marshall-Joseph-Ridley undertakings.

Mr. Simon Hughes: Can the Secretary of State answer the questions that he has still not answered? How does he reconcile the uncorrected public announcement that if BAe sold Rover within five years the payback would be £650 million when it would be £400 million? How does he reconcile the Prime Minister's statement about the valuation in a letter to my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) on 21 November 1988 that
the value to be attached to assets … is at present purely speculative
with his statement this afternoon that the price was reached by striking a reasonable balance between risks and objectives? How does he reconcile his declaration that he


is in favour of no support, a strong competition policy within the EC and upholding the law with his subsidisation without telling the EC, thereby breaking the law and his own declared policy?

Mr. Ridley: The hon. Gentleman is wrong. The adjustment to the ceiling of any penalty for a sale within five years was indeed communicated to the Commission. It was twice reduced because the Commission reduced the original consideration. The conclusion of a valuation between a seller and a buyer must be the price at which the buyer is prepared to buy and the seller to sell. That is the price that was finally agreed last July.

Mr. Simon Coombs: Is my right hon. Friend aware that while Austin Rover was in the public sector the plant at Stratton near Swindon was a frequently mentioned candidate for closure and that since Rover has been in the private sector that plant has been the recipient of £ 17 million of new investment from BAe? Does my right hon. Friend draw any conclusion from that? Can he tell the Opposition how many new hospitals and schools could have been built with the money that for many years haemorrhaged into Austin Rover while it was in the public sector? Can he tell us what efforts he is making to find the person who leaked the document?

Mr. Ridley: On the latter point, it is not for me but for the PAC to re-establish its reputation for looking after the financial and confidentially financial interests of this House. I am glad to hear that the privatisation of the Rover Group has led to increased investment in my hon. Friend's constituency. It will lead to increased investment in many other constituencies as the momentum increases.

Mr. Geoffrey Robinson: In the light of the Secretary of State's answers this afternoon, the only thing for which the House can be grateful is that it was not he who negotiated the deal. If he had, it would have been an even bigger rip-off than it was. [Interruption.] We have yet to receive a successful answer to two shocking revelations, first, that not one penny has yet been paid by BAe and, secondly, that the British Government surreptitiously paid £38 million. [Interruption.] Finally—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must have a chance to put his questions.

Mr. Robinson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, in the light of those revelations and the inadequacy of his answers about them, the Government have forfeited any remaining claim that they ever had to be from the party of financial responsibility and managerial competence?

Mr. Ridley: It is a rare and well deserved tribute to my noble Friend Lord Young that the hon. Gentleman believes that he negotiated an even better deal than I would have done. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I have dealt with the rest of his questions because I gave full, open and satisfactory answers to all the points that were raised.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that there is another statement today and a debate on a Public

Accounts Committee report. I understand that the Public Accounts Committee is to discuss this matter tomorrow and no doubt we shall return to it later. I will allow three more questions from each side and then we must move on.

Mrs. Maureen Hicks: As a west midlands Member and the proud owner of a British Rover car, I feel duty bound to pay tribute to the success of Rover in private hands. Thanks to the vision of the Government, Rover has gone from strength to strength and has secured the jobs of many midlands workers. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the Government dealt exclusively with British Aerospace because of pressure from the House not to sell to an overseas company?

Mr. Ridley: My hon. Friend is quite right. I remember, although at the time I was not in the Department, the extraordinary political clamour surrounding the possibility of selling the company to Ford. Therefore, my noble Friend had no alternative, when he finally got a serious offer from British Aerospace, but to undertake to negotiate exclusively lest a situation such as that which had developed previously arose again.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Is it not clear that the noble Lord Young must have set out deliberately to mislead the European Commission by failing to indicate—

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is a reflection on a Member of the Upper House. The hon. Gentleman must withdraw that comment.

Mr. Campbell-Savours: If I have used a word that you wish me to withdraw, then I do so.
The Department misled the European Commission by failing to tell it that concessions were being made and that subsidies were being paid. What credibility do we now have with people in the European Community who have been complaining about the stiff position of the Government on the whole question of regional subsidies and sectoral support?

Mr. Ridley: That is not the case. My noble Friend considered that the agreements that he had made beyond the main deal in relation to the sale of the Rover Group did not come within the competence of the Commission in relation to state aid. I have explained why I think that that was right. If the Commission does not agree, it can comment in the future. We wait to see what it says.

Mr. James Cran: Does my right hon. Friend agree that in evidence to the Select Committee on Trade and Industry the chairman of Rover, speaking on behalf of his whole board, gave absolute backing to the Government on their action? The board gave as the precise reason for that the fact that it did not want a public auction and the consequential adverse effects that that would have on the dealer network, the work force and the customer.

Mr. Ridley: So far I have not heard any hon. Member question the fact that it was correct to engage in exclusive negotiations, and that is because of the reason that my hon. Friend has given. If that be so, no one could question the deal that was finally agreed with British Aerospace, especially as it was regarded at the time as extremely risky and unfair to British Aerospace to undertake such large risks for the consideration that they offered.

Mr. Brian Sedgemore: Can the Secretary of State tell us whether his permanent secretary as accounting officer for the Department has put in an accounting officer's minute complaining about what went on? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that if the directors of a public company acted in the way in which he has acted, the fraud squad would long since have had them in the dock at the Old Bailey for corruptly defrauding their shareholders?

Mr. Ridley: My permanent secretary as accounting officer has made a complete disclosure to the Comptroller and Auditor General on all these matters. That is the confidential memorandum that the Public Accounts Committee is receiving. He has made no comment other than to make sure, as I have said, that the PAC was aware of all these matters.

Mr. Neil Hamilton: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is rather quaint to hear Opposition Members complaining about an illusory loss of £38 million when we did not hear a peep from them about the loss of 100 times that amount—£3·5 billion—which can be laid at Rover's door over recent years? We wholly endorse the Government's position on the sale. The difference between my right hon. Friend and the Opposition is like the difference between a Rover Sterling and a Trabant.

Mr. Ridley: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend whose comments are borne out by what I have said. I enjoyed his description of the Opposition as a Trabant.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: Those of us who were in the Department of Trade and Industry when British Leyland and Rover were partners remember that the company had to be taken into public ownership because it was on the point of collapse. The Government of the day had no choice because they had to save the jobs of the people in the industry. If we had not taken the company into public ownership there would have been mass unemployment. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would have liked to see those workers being put out of work. Obviously, Conservative Members have a short memory about what actually happened. Because of the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman and the Government, money has been lost, although I am not saying that they had their fingers in the till. If they were councillors they would have been disqualified and surcharged. It is high time that the right hon. Gentleman resigned.

Mr. Ridley: If I were the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heifer) I would sit this one out and not admit to having played such a prominent role in the waste of the £3·5 billion to which I have referred.

Straw and Stubble Burning

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Gummer): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement.
Hon. Members will be well aware of the considerable problems this year on straw and stubble burning, and will recall a similar situation in 1983 when there were many complaints from the public. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Hon. Members who do not wish to remain for the statement should leave quietly.

Mr. Gummer: In 1984 the Royal Commission on environmental pollution recommended a ban on straw burning to come into force within five years. By then, the Government had already drawn up model byelaws providing for greatly enhanced controls, and the National Farmers Union had issued a toughened code of practice in 1986. A ban on burning was therefore not judged to be necessary.
However, in 1989 the problems have returned with a vengeance. There have been many cases of smoke drifting across roads, in some cases with disastrous results, smoke-filled homes, dirty smuts, and genuine fears for the safety of property. In addition, there have been considerable losses of hedges and trees and, of course, wildlife. I have received more than 600 letters, many of which have been from hon. Members in all parts of the House and my Department has received notification of more than 2,500 complaints.
I have, therefore, ordered a thorough review of the policy and the effectiveness of existing controls. I have considered the alternatives carefully so that I can respond first to the public's concern, secondly to farmers' concerns that prohibiting straw burning completely will add to their costs, and thirdly to the fact that the reputation of the farming community suffers inevitably from the consequences of this practice on others who live in the countryside.
I note that the NFU has not come out in favour of a ban, but has instead proposed a licensing scheme, charging for the issue of licences and withholding them from farmers with a poor track record. There are, of course, legal difficulties with the scheme, in terms of withholding of licences on a discretionary basis, but in my view the strongest argument against the licensing proposal is that it would be unlikely to result in any significant reduction in burning.
The Government have therefore decided that straw and stubble burning should be banned. If Parliament agrees to the ban, it will come into force in England and Wales in the late autumn of 1992. That will give farmers three seasons to adjust to the new situation and to develop alternative methods of cultivation. That seems to be a proper balance between the demands of people who live in the countryside and the consideration that we would give to any section of the community to enable them to meet the needs of the whole community.
Accordingly, during the passage of the Bill which will be introduced to give new powers to control pollution and waste, the Government will be seeking the necessary powers to ban straw and stubble burning. The powers will also enable me to grant exemptions, but I should like to make it clear that, although I intend to consult the industry on their scope, any exemptions will be limited


—for example, to a specific crop such as linseed. I do not propose to introduce a system of licences for farmers permitted to burn under those exemptions.
I shall also discuss with the NFU how the existing code of practice should be strengthened and applied during the period leading up to the proposed ban.

Dr. David Clark: I congratulate the Minister on his decision to ban the anti-social and anti-environmental practice of straw burning. This year straw burning has become an unacceptable public nuisance in many parts of Britain. The NFU code of practice and local authority byelaws plainly have not worked, and the Minister is right to announce his intentions today. It has long been the policy of the Labour party to ban straw burning. We therefore support the Minister and welcome his conversion.
The Minister referred in his statement to seeking powers in the course of the anti-pollution Bill. Will he give the House an assurance that there will be a representative of his Ministry on the Committee of that Bill to ensure that that aspect of agriculture and land use will be fully aired because it is an important matter and there are difficulties involved?
As the Minister knows, it is not enough simply to ban straw burning. We need to turn our attention to the problem of what to do with the surplus straw. Obviously, there are occasions when straw can be incorporated and it can be fed to animals, but there are times when those means are not appropriate. With a little ingenuity and innovation, surplus straw can be used to positive environmental effect.
Have the Government any plans to encourage that? Will the Government be providing financial assistance for research and development into other uses of straw? For example, it could be used in the construction industry, as a timber substitute—in contiboard and plywood panels. Are the Government prepared to assist companies such as British Sugar which, I understand, is contemplating a straw-powered paper-making plant in East Anglia? It is vital that those aspects of straw burning should be seriously considered. Otherwise the sound environmental benefits of banning straw burning may be lost.

Mr. Gummer: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support. I assure him that the Parliamentary Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry), who has responsibility for farming, will sit on the Committee of the Bill to represent the interests that the hon. Gentleman mentioned and to ensure that the proposal is carried to fruition.
The Government are already spending some £700,000 on the research to which the hon. Gentleman referred. I am interested in the use of straw to make boards. Stramit is a major organisation in Suffolk which has done a great deal of work to develop that, and I pay tribute to the important exports of machinery developed by that company.
There is a plan by British Sugar to develop a large factory, using straw not as a fuel but in the paper industry. That has a real chance of success, and I have no doubt that various plans will be announced as they come to fruition. I am sure that they will receive the support that they deserve.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that there is an important debate after this on the Public Accounts Committee report. I know that this subject is of great interest to right hon. and hon. Members but the proposal will come into effect in 1992 and there is to be a Bill, so there will be other opportunities to discuss the matter. I should like to get on to the debate on the PAC report by 5.30 pm, so I hope that hon. Members will keep their questions brief.

Sir Hector Monro: Although my right hon. Friend is right about what he is doing for the environment, has he given sufficient thought to the problems of farmers, bearing in mind that their incomes are substantially lower than they were some years ago, and how they can find ways to dispose of the straw within three years? From a husbandry point of view, it is difficult to find an alternative.
Will the Minister also give an assurance that muirburn in the hills will not be affected because it is an essential part of the regeneration of grass and heather in the uplands?

Mr. Gummer: I can certainly give that assurance to my hon. Friend and I shall consider the effect of the ban on the farming industry. However, if we do not have such a ban, the price paid by farmers every year in terms of the effect upon public confidence and attitudes will be higher than any loss that may arise from the ban. Many farmers who used to think that straw burning was essential have already found alternatives. I believe that the industry will find ways of complying with the ban in the three years to come. I suspect that if the ban had not been announced now alternatives would be unlikely to be found within three years.

Mr. Geraint Howells: I am delighted that the Minister has accepted the views of my colleagues on the Liberal Benches and those of many right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House. I congratulate him because on this occasion he has made the right decision. It is long overdue, but all hon. Members should co-operate and work with the Minister.
The Minister has given farmers two or three years to put their house in order. We have learnt from the mistakes of 1983–84 when milk quotas were delivered overnight. We should all back the Minister and the Government during the proceedings on the Bill.

Mr. Gummer: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support. There is always a likelihood that a policy will be successful when it has many parents.

Mr. Jerry Wiggin: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the planned British Sugar plant will consume some 750,000 tonnes of straw per year-10 per cent. of annual production—but that the innovative nature of the technology required and the high risks involved mean that it may need substantial contributions from the Government? Will the Minister make representation to the Department of Trade and Industry in favour of that excellent British enterprise?

Mr. Gummer: We are not at that stage yet, but the proposals, albeit in their early stages, certainly look attractive. There is also the European dimension, which I shall consider with care and thought.

Mr. Andrew Hunter: I accept what my right hon. Friend has said as both inevitable and necessary, but I have one reservation. Will a ban on burning involve greater use of incorporation, which in turn will involve greater use of nitrates? Is the Minister sure that we are not replacing one environmental problem with another?

Mr. Gummer: My hon. Friend would no doubt subscribe to the concept that "You don't get owt for nowt". There is no way that we can make those changes without some deleterious effects. It is true that a small amount of extra diesel fuel will be used and that some farmers wil need to use or release more nitrates than they would otherwise have done. However, on balance the extra damage done is far outweighed by the advantages of banning the practice, and I am sure that many other countries in Europe will soon find it necessary to do the same.

Mr. Tim Boswell: Will my right hon. Friend accept from a farmer who has burnt many thousands of acres of straw that I believe that the balance has shifted as he described and that it is right to bring forward the ban? There are acceptable alternatives and three years should allow plenty of time to introduce them.

Mr. Gummer: I thank my hon. Friend for that. We should recognise that there is an added difficulty for the farming community in this. None of us should think it wrong to give the farming community time to find answers to a problem which is not easy, especially in areas of heavy land. Nevertheless, I do not think that farming can continue to pay the price in terms of public esteem which straw burning such as we had this year was always bound to cost.

Mr. Roger Gale: My right hon. Friend will be aware that his decision will be welcomed by people in north-east Kent—urban dwellers in Margate and Herne Bay who have suffered from the practice every year, and responsible farmers whose reputations have been damaged year upon year. Nevertheless, his statement means that, for a time in the autumn, straw will lie in the fields before it is incorporated. Will the Ministry embark on some form of publicity campaign to ensure that the public are aware of their responsibility in this matter as well?

Mr. Gummer: I am sure that my hon. Friend is right. We shall have to divert the funds that we have until now used to encourage safer straw burning to remind the public of the need for them not to fire straw, although we hope that it will be incorporated as quickly as possible and will lie in the fields for only a short time. There is no point in ignoring the fact that there will still be dangers and difficulties. One does not solve any problem without running into others.

Sir Jim Spicer: My right hon. Friend rightly said that an exemption would be granted in some cases, but he linked it only to cost. Will he consider some types of land where the ban will be a major problem?

Mr. Gummer: I think that I shall have to disappoint my hon. Friend on that score. I do not envisage there being exemptions in those circumstances. There may be a few circumstances in which it would not be proper or safe not to allow some kind of burning, but we would raise hopes that we could not meet if we suggested that certain types

of land were suitable for straw burning and others were not. One of the problems has been that some farmers, who have burnt straw precisely in line with the best practice and the NFU code, have found that a change in the wind has rendered their straw burning dangerous.

Mr. Michael Lord: My right hon. Friend will be aware that, although many people will welcome his announcement, many responsible cereal farmers in East Anglia will be rather anxious about it. There is no doubt that, since 1983, there have been great improvements in agricultural practice such as incorporation and the alternative use of straw. We welcome those, but my right hon. Friend will be aware that there are circumstances in which the only answer for farmers who want to get on to the land to get the next crop in is to burn. They will be saddened to hear that no loophole is to be left which enables them to burn straw in those circumstances. As only a selfish minority brought all this about, will my right hon. Friend consider making some provision for unusual circumstances in which burning is the only option?

Mr. Gummer: I am tempted to take the route that my hon. Friend suggests as his constituency and mine are immediately adjacent and my constituents are among those who will be most hard hit by the ban, but although I recognise that fact, I have concluded that it is not possible to operate a licensing system in a narrow way. I do not see how it is possible to have a system in which bureaucrats say, "You can burn here, but not there" without their being responsible for the damage and danger that burning entails.
As a reasonable period of time has been allowed for our constituents to come to terms with the ban, I think that we should not have straw burning except in circumstances which will be very narrowly defined and which probably relate only to certain crops, of which I gave an example, for which alternative methods are simply not available.

Mr. James Paice: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that this action has been taken because a minority of farmers have flouted the regulations year after year? That is where the blame must be attached if people wish to attach blame.
Does my right hon. Friend recognise that considerations with regard to nitrates are important, especially for farmers in areas which have been designated as potential nitrate-sensitive zones? When he draws up regulations for such zones, will he ensure that the fact that straw incorporation requires extra nitrogen is recognised so that farmers in my constituency and similar areas are riot jeopardised?

Mr. Gummer: I shall certainly consider carefully the effect of the ban on nitrate-sensitive areas. I assure my hon. Friend of that. He is right to say that the activities of a small minority have let down the vast majority, who have been very anxious to keep the practice within bounds.
Once again, we must observe that the trouble for farmers is often that they are judged not by the average, nor by the best, but by the few who get into the newspapers and are not fair examples. Nevertheless, this year, a number of the serious accidents which appear to have occurred were the result of perfectly proper straw burning which was affected by a change in the weather.

Mr. Andy Stewart: My right hon. Friend's statement will be widely welcomed, but it will not be terribly popular down on the farm because bale carting is a lousy job. We recognise that 2 per cent. of the population cannot dictate to the majority and I welcome what my right hon. Friend has said, but there will be a danger from accidental, uncontrolled fires. Moreover, the accusation that his protection of the environment from straw burning is cosmetic may be levelled at my right hon. Friend because the use of nitrates and chemicals could be much worse.

Mr. Gummer: I might be accused of that, but it would not be true. One need not worry too much if one is accused only of things that are untrue. I am not too worried about such an accusation because it will not stick.
I hope that my hon. Friend agrees that the farming community has a major role to play, looking after 80 per cent. of the land surface of Britain. We owe a great deal to farmers for what they have done. They have protected the countryside and continue to do so. One of the reasons why the ban is necessary is that straw burning sometimes makes the public so angry that what they owe to farmers is obscured.

Mr. Edward Leigh: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement because the action of a minority of farmers is giving a bad name to all. My right hon. Friend mentioned British Sugar. Is he aware of a company in my constituency which is researching how to make board out of straw and has received considerable support from the Government? Can he confirm that Government research grants will continue to be made available to such companies?

Mr. Gummer: Most research grants are provided by the Department of Trade and Industry and I understand from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that they will continue. My Ministry will continue to do what we have already done to make it possible to use straw more effectively in other ways.

Mr. Anthony Nelson: I, too, welcome the ban. It will bring widespread relief to constituents in cereal-growing areas such as that which I represent and it will once and for all stop the atmosphere being used as an airborne dustbin for agricultural waste. As the ban will not come into effect for two or three years, will my right hon. Friend confirm that in the meantime every effort will be made to encourage local authorities to pass model byelaws and enforce them, and to ensure that the voluntary code of practice is strictly observed?

Mr. Gummer: I thank my hon. Friend for those observations. I hope that the code of practice will be considerably tightened and widely implemented, and that prosecutions will continue to be brought where necessary.
Above all, I want the farming community to recognise that it can do a great deal for its image if only it is prepared to show the public how concerned it is about the problem.

Mr. Quentin Davies: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on facing, with characteristic decisiveness, a problem which undoubtedly needed to be tackled, but may I ask him for a detailed economic assessment of the costs that the measure will impose on the British farming community? Even in Lincolnshire, part of which I represent, where we have highly efficient farming and some of the best land in the country, the farming community cannot bear increased economic burdens at present. May we have the benefit of such an economic assessment before the House considers the Bill?

Mr. Gummer: I thank my hon. Friend for his first comment. It may sound a little churlish to say that what he asks for is not possible. Over the next three years, alternatives will emerge, even in areas where alternatives are currently thought to be impossible. That has happened in my own constituency. Over the past two or three years, farmers who swore to me that it was impossible not to burn straw have found alternative methods which are less expensive than straw burning. If those cases are not atypical, I suspect that there will be many more in the next three years. Any economic assessment which did not take that into account would be unrealistic.

Mr. Henry Bellingham: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, the vast majority of parish councils in west Norfolk will welcome today's statement? I am sure that many insects and species of birds, especially the English partridge, will also welcome it. Is my right hon. Friend aware that, although the vast majority of farmers will be able to alter their techniques, some small marshland farmers in the fenland area of my constituency will have problems? Will he consider their particular difficulties?

Mr. Gummer: Under the terms of what I have said, I am happy to look at any particular problems that my hon. Friend raises. I am also glad that he has taken it upon himself to become the spokesman for the insects and birds of his constituency and elsewhere. Among other problems, straw burning has deprived us of much wildlife which should be retained. Like my hon. Friend, I am especially pleased that this measure will help in the retention and expansion of the English partridge.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry that I have been unable to call the three hon. Members who are rising. I shall bear their claims in mind when we come to agriculture questions.

Points of Order

Mr. Barry Jones: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I draw to your attention questions for written answer Nos. 343 and 344 on today's Order Paper, which concern the important matter of the poll tax in Wales? They appear to be a device to bypass an accepted convention of the House—for a Cabinet Minister to explain his actions and to answer questions orally in the House. I seek your guidance. The people of Wales hate the poll tax, as the Secretary of State for Wales knows. That is why we think that he is running away and that his subterfuge is a disgrace. We seek your help and assistance.

Mr. Ted Rowlands: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Is it on the same matter?

Mr. Rowlands: Yes.

Mr. Speaker: As it is on the same matter, I shall take it, so that I can answer all the points raised at once. However, if it is an unrelated matter, I would rather not take it now.

Mr. Rowlands: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. This House is founded on the fundamental principle of the financial accountability of the Executive to the House, especially when there are new fiscal impositions on our communities and people. The poll tax is a new tax, which will be double the cost of the current rates for many in my constituency. Surely there must be some remedy through you, Mr. Speaker, or perhaps you have a remedy to ensure that the question of fiscal accountablility of Ministers is considered on such a fundamental issue. You should be able to help us to make the Minister give a statement.

Mr. Win Griffiths: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. As I recall, my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones) made a protest when the Secretary of State for the Environment made a statement on the poll tax for England and we were promised that there would be a statement by the Welsh Office on this matter. However, we are now being bypassed and experiencing government by press release. I hope that we have a positive—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall deal with this, as there is pressure on the subsequent debate. The hon. Gentleman and the whole House know that I am not responsible for whether statements are made. There has to be some balance in these matters. We have had two statements today and if we had more, very little time would be left for debate. I am not responsible; it is a matter for the Government.

Mr. Rhodri Morgan: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Are you saying that the Secretary of State for Wales asked whether he could make a statement and that you told him—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that if the Secretary of State for Wales asks to make a statement—and it is a courtesy for him to ask permission—he makes it. I cannot stop that.

Mr. Morgan: rose——

Mr. Speaker: No, I have dealt with the matter.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps I can help. The Secretary of State for Wales has many duties to perform. I do not know why he has not turned up to provide the necessary information on the poll tax, but I know that he spent a lot of time yesterday in the Tea Room with a lot of Tory wets organising voting—

Mr. Speaker: Order. That has nothing to do with this matter.

Mr. Ray Powell: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that it may not be within your domain to decide on this matter because we are raising the question of the Secretary of State for Wales making a statement. However, you will recall the times that we have sat in this Chamber when the Scottish poll tax has been debated and the number of times that questions were asked of the Secretary of State for Scotland. Surely you should ensure that on the issue of the poll tax in Wales the Secretary of State enables Back Bench Members in particular to question him on his deliberations and decisions.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must repeat to the hon. Member and to other hon. Members who may be thinking of questioning me on this that it is not a matter for me. It is a matter for the Leader of the House and I am surprised that it was not raised with him earlier. There was plenty of opportunity then and he is the man responsible.

Mr. Max Madden: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Have you invited the hon. Member for Darlington (Mr. Fallon), who is a Whip, to stand near you during Prime Minister's Question Time? I noticed today that he seemed to be muttering names to you—

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is not the sort of question I expect and I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman should even mention such a matter. I take no notice of anyone standing at my elbow, although it is true that my secretary stands here to note whether a member of the Front Bench gets up. But I take no notice of anyone else who may stand by the Chair and I certainly do not appreciate hon. Members whispering to me at Question Time, or at any other time.

Mr. Andrew Welsh: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I genuinely seek your guidance on a point of order regarding Standing Order No. 130 on the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs and a situation that I fear is heading towards plain unfairness. The Leader of the House said today that your ruling yesterday was in a different context from the matter that I raised regarding Standing Order No. 130. I presume that he meant the debate on 20 December 1988 in which the House decided that it
recognises the inability of the Committee of Selection to nominate Members to serve on the Scottish Affairs Committee."—[Official Report, 20 December 1988; Vol. 144, c. 393.]
The Committee is not unable to select hon. Members to serve; there are plenty who are willing to serve. It is, rather, unwilling to nominate hon. Members to serve, which is a very different matter. How can one be bound by Standing Orders and yet not have the power to implement them? Surely all Standing Orders have equal validity and are


equally binding. In that context, I ask for a further ruling not only on Standing Order No. 20, but on Standing Order No. 130.

Mr. Speaker: I was dealing with a different matter yesterday, but I can answer the hon. Gentleman. Standing Order No. 130 states that there shall be a Select Committee, but Standing Order No. 104 states how it should be set up. The House passed a resolution on 20 December 1988 saying that the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs should not be set up.

Mr. Rowlands: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You chided us gently for not taking our other parliamentary opportunity with the Leader of the House. However, the answer about which we are complaining is a written answer this afternoon. As you know, no Back-Bench Member would know the reply to a parliamentary question until after 3.30 pm. We did not have the chance to take the opportunity you have mentioned.

Mr. Speaker: I received notice from a number of hon. Members before I came into the Chair at 2.30 pm that this point might be raised. The answer probably was available and should have been raised in the way I suggested.

Mr. Barry Jones: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker, and, I hope, in assistance to you. What has been released this afternoon by the Secretary of State for Wales is a detailed statement involving several billion pounds as it affects every adult on the poll tax in Wales and every borough, district, and county authority in Wales. Can you help in any way, Mr. Speaker, by bringing to the House now a Minister from the Welsh Office so that that Minister can answer for the serious matters mentioned in the Secretary of State's statement?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman knows that that is not within my power. However, he has virtually done it himself by making that request. I am sure that those on the Government Front Bench will have heard what he said.

Statutory Instruments, &c.

Mr. Speaker: With the leave of the House, I shall put together the Questions on the four motions relating to statutory instruments.

Ordered,
That the draft Education Support Grants (Amendment) Regulations 1989 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.
That the draft National Savings Bank (Investment Deposits) (Limits) (Amendment) Order 1989 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.
That the Bovine Offal (Prohibition) Regulations 1989 (S.I., 1989, No. 2061) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.
That the Social Security (Unemployment, Sickness and Invalidity Benefit) Amendment No. 3 Regulations 1989 (S.I., 1989, No. 2122) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.—[Mr. Sackville.]

Public Accounts

Mr. Robert Sheldon: I beg to move,
That this House takes note of the 37th to 40th and 42nd to 52nd Reports of the Committee of Public Accounts of Session 1987–88, of the 1st to 33rd Reports of Session 1988–89 and of the Treasury Minutes and Northern Ireland Department of Finance and Personnel Memorandum on those Reports (Cm. 533, 563, 624, 648, 697, 717, 747, 831 and 850), with particular reference to the following Reports:—
1987–88:
Forty-fourth, Quality of service to the public at DHSS local offices;
Forty-eighth, Sale of Royal Ordnance plc.
1988–89:
First, Management of the collections of the English national museums and galleries;
Twenty-sixth, Coronary heart disease;
Twenty-eighth, Backlog of maintenance of motorways and trunk roads;
Thirty-first, Reliability and maintainability of defence equipment.
The last such debate was on 3 November 1988 when 38 reports were covered by the motion. Now we are dealing with 48 reports and nine Government replies. The motion is in my name and that of the hon. Member for Scarborough (Sir M. Shaw), who is such an assiduous and valuable member of the Committee. As on recent occasions, we have chosen a few reports to highlight, although reference to many of the others will be acceptable in the debate.
I should like to thank the Committee, which is hard-working and meets twice a week. There are many papers to read. The civil servants involved naturally present their case with a great volume of paper. Consequently, the weekends of many of my colleagues on the Committee are taken up with reading them. There is no doubt that in the distant past the Chairman on many occasions did all the work. He read all the papers and the amount of work done by other Committee members varied greatly. However, now we have a hard-working Committee which has provided great advantages to the reports that we produce.
During the time covered by the reports, we have lost four Labour Members from the Committee—my hon. Friends the Members for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien), for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers), for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam) and for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish), who have all joined the Opposition Front Bench. It looks as if the Opposition Front Bench is looking to the Public Accounts Committee for recruits. It is a measure of the type of ability that we have been able to acquire that, although the Committee has lost the advantage of having those people and their experience on the Committee, the advantage which they bring to the Opposition Front Bench is an understanding of many economic and financial matters.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: It is like a Government training scheme.

Mr. Sheldon: It is a little more than a Government training scheme. It copies the way in which the Government use their Whips Office. The method that we use is preferable to that.

Mr. Graham Allen: It is a valuable experience. There is a vacancy on the Committee and if my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) wishes to join us, he would be most welcome.

Mr. Sheldon: I shall deal with the issue raised during the statement made by the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. I regret—as does the Committee—the leaking of confidential memoranda. The Committee receives many confidential memoranda dealing with sensitive matters concerning defence, security and others. If it were felt that those were now in jeopardy, the work of the Committee would be seriously affected. After it receives those confidential memoranda, the Committee decides which of them shall be published and what parts should be available to public scrutiny. With the exception of only a few—and only parts of those—all our investigative sessions are in public since we believe that there is great advantage in letting the public in on our work so as to give them knowledge and understanding of what we do.
The new Financial Secretary to the Treasury is now a member of the Committee. In line with tradition, he does not attend very often but when he does—whenever time and interest allow—we welcome him. We both proceed on similar lines as the Treasury wants to obtain value for money and so does the Committee. Naturally, there are differences between members of the Committee and the Financial Secretary, but on value for money we are at one and we hope that that will long remain. The previous Financial Secretary, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames (Mr. Lamont), understood that well. We have an enormous advantage in that we have unanimity within the Committee. Without exception, all our reports are unanimous.

Mr. Skinner: That is the problem;.

Mr. Sheldon: It is not a problem; it is an advantage. If we were divided, the Government need not take any notice of our reports. Unlike any other Committee, we are there to provide value for money whether it concerns Royal Ordnance factories or the sale of Rover. Many other Committees can decide on questions of policy. We are concerned not with policy but with the taxpayers' interests.

Mr. Skinner: Is my right hon. Friend saying that we come to the House to take part in the sloppy consensus which he describes in producing unanimous reports? Is he saying that, after a decade of swindles both by the Government and by private entrepreneurs, Tory Members will connive with Labour Members searching for the truth in order to embarrass the Government? There was a £200 million swindle at Ferranti over defence contracts and now there is another swindle at Rover. Despite those giant swindles, this happy consensus never arrives at a conclusion—because of the lack of conflict—until it is all over.

Mr. Sheldon: I do not think that my hon. Friend has read the reports. If he had, he would see that we have made serious criticisms—

Mr. Skinner: It is too late.

Mr. Sheldon: Of course it is late but we operate only after the full investigation. We cannot proceed until we obtain full information as to what happened. We then produce the report. As I have said, we have made serious criticisms of the Administration. If my hon. Friend reads

the reports he will see those criticisms. Every one of my hon. Friend's points as to the failure to obtain value for money is dealt with in those reports.

Mr. Michael Shersby: In considering the point made by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), does the right hon. Gentleman agree that often the Committee's deliberations are extremely effective? Does he recall the investigation into corruption in the Property Services Agency and the results of that investigation which led to the virtual instant dismissal of the head of that agency? Surely that is action.

Mr. Sheldon: That is true and the same applies to defence contracts. When the chairmanship of the Committee was held by Harold Wilson, he understood the importance of the Public Accounts Committee in exposing some of the Ferranti and other defence matters of the time. I pay tribute to him. He was the Chairman who initiated those investigations. There are no fewer investigations today; if anything, there are rather more of them because the National Audit Office finds out about these matters more effectively.
The Committee has an important task in exposing occasions when there has been a failure to obtain value for money for the taxpayer. It is its dislike of the taxpayer being rooked that is the cause of the Committee's unanimity. When we leave the Committee we return to our usual political affiliations. Many of our members are vocal in this House on political matters, but when it comes to value for money we are united in our determination to achieve it.

Mr. Allen: My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) has made a strong and genuine argument about the role of this House and its Committees, but if this House and its Committees are to hold the Government to account, which is our role, almost by definition we can account only for what has already happened—and the Public Accounts Committee is foremost in that role. It is a retrospective role, but I hope that all hon. Members will agree that it is a valuable one.

Mr. Sheldon: I am grateful for that remark. I wish that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover would pay a visit to hear some of our deliberations—attendance at the Committee is certainly open to him. I should dearly Like him to see the questioning of those who are responsible for spending the money by members of the Committee. He would hear vigorous questioning by members on both sides of the Committee.

Mr. Skinner: I have to tell my right hon. Friend that there is a question of hypocrisy here. I did not agree with the setting up of Select Committees. I do not believe that the combination of Tories and Labour Members in this sort of consensus is valuable—

Mr. Allen: We do it every day.

Mr. Skinner: This is a place where conflict between arguments takes place. Having opposed the setting up of Select Committees, I have no intention of being hypocritical and joining them. If my right hon. Friend wants to continue the work that he says is so valuable, that is for him to decide, but I have no wish to be involved. If he wants to connive with the Tories and any other rag, tag


and bobtails that is his business. I have not come here to do that: I am here to attack the Tory Government and their supporters day in and day out.

Mr. Sheldon: I understand my hon. Friend's position on Select Committees—he does not like them. Most hon. Members disagree with him about that—

Mr. Skinner: That does not matter to me.

Mr. Sheldon: Select Committees have produced investigations of enormous value to everyone. Questions may be asked across the Floor of the House, and they are valuable, but they do not pursue the detail. Again and again the truth has been found by such pursuit, and only repeated questioning brings out what happened. If my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover doubts that, I suggest that he comes along on Monday, when we begin examining the sale of Rover and when we shall discover information which he, despite his great talents for parliamentary procedure, would be unable to obtain for himself.
I turn now to the work that the National Audit Office does. We work closely with it because it provides the information, and we deal with how that information came about. Why was the money spent? How could it have been spent better? How could it have been spent more efficiently and effectively? We and the NAO are a partnership. The Committee depends on the NAO's investigations, which are based on an examination of Government papers. We discuss with the NAO the lines of inquiry that it is pursuing.
I want first briefly to mention the fourth report of the Session 1988–89 which deals with the National Audit Office's estimates and corporate plan. The NAO, using fewer staff, is producing more reports and undertaking more investigations of value for money. That is a tribute to the efficiency with which the NAO, under John Bourn, is progressing. I am pleased that John Bourn's first full year as Comptroller and Auditor General has gone so well. He has complete discretion over which investigations to choose, but we also feed in our views.
John Bourn has slightly fewer than 1,000 staff, whom he needs to keep Government value for money under review. I want to mention David Wyland, who has retired as Deputy Comptroller and Auditor General after 40 years in the NAO. There is now a new head of the Northern Ireland Audit Office—Dr. Bill Jack—and he and his staff play an important role. They were rather poor relations of the NAO in Great Britain, but following Denis Calvert's work on the De Lorean affair the Northern Ireland Office became rather more important; we discovered it had a hidden strength that we had not appreciated and the work it has done has given it a higher profile among members of our Committee.
The accounting officers—the permanent secretaries who are responsible for spending public money and who appear before us—take their responsibility seriously and spend a great deal of time preparing for meetings with the Committee so that they can answer the questions that we put to them. In the previous Session about 220 recommendations were made by the Public Accounts Committee, about 200 of which the Government accepted. The numbers are about the same for this Session.
We have the great advantage of hindsight. It is up to the Committee to ensure that we are not overwhelmed by it so that we fail to take into account how the situation appeared at the time to the permanent secretary making his or her decision. Within the bounds of what is humanly possible, we do not do too badly.
Fraud and corruption are the most important matters that we examine. I urge my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover to acknowledge that that was one of the main reasons why the Committee was set up in the last century. However important value for money is, it must always come second to ensuring that fraud and corruption are kept to a minimum. Our most important task is to come down strongly on cases of fraud and corruption. It is not enough to reflect what happens in the country at large; when dealing with public money we have a much greater responsibility than when dealing with private money. The Committee has always held that to be so and will continue so to do.
The first report with which I shall deal is about the health services. The great advantage now is that we are taking them more seriously than we used to. We used not to examine them in detail, but now we look into them closely and we have produced a number of reports on them. Generally, our task is not difficult—we look at what the Government intend to spend their money on and ask what their objective is. How do they come to decide that they will launch a certain programme? We ask that their objectives be closely defined—it is no good coming up with a general proposition. We want clear objectives, monitoring during the implementation of the programme and an assessment of the ultimate results. We want to be able to compare objective and achievement. That is not difficult, but in practice it fails miserably on a number of occasions.
One case involved administrators in the National Health Service. The laudable aim of reducing the number of top administrators was held to be a matter of Government policy. We do not question Government policy, which is up to the Government. We want to ensure that, once the Government have decided on a policy, they carry it out in the most effective, efficient and economical manner. We found that the Government had no clear plan about how many administrators expected to go or how much it would cost. At the end of the scheme, they did not seem to know how many had actually gone. We suspected that a number of them had been re-employed in other parts of the National Health Service. Those are important matters.
I shall briefly mention the third book of Sir Leo Pliatzky who was a distinguished civil servant, a second permanent secretary to the Treasury and the permanent secretary to the Department of Trade. In the third of his splendid books, which are well worth reading and deal with public expenditure, he mentioned that the National Audit Office advocated the spending of money. With a true Treasury background, he did not agree with that. However, the National Audit Office does not really advocate that.
In a number of our reports, we say that it is worth spending money if, as a result, much more money is saved. An obvious example is the repair of the fabric of buildings. Clearly, we could let a building deteriorate and save money or have a proper system of maintaining the building's fabric which would not be spending money, but


an economical use of the building and the way in which it is dealt with. It was that sort of spending that the National Audit Office had in mind.
The auditor's role today is not what it used to be; there has been a fundamental change. Years ago, auditors were civil servants who added up figures to ensure that the money went to the right people for the right purposes. That was splendid and crucial. However, in addition to that, the auditor's role today is to ask whether what is being done is sensible. When a company or finance director has a meeting with the auditors of the company, they tell him or her why they are proposing certain actions. They do not just add up and say that the director has to pay a certain amount of tax, but go into the matter with care. They say, "You can save money if you do it another way" or, "You can make much more effective use of your resources if you handle them in a different way." That is the role of today's auditors. The trouble is that a number of people do not realise the change that has taken place.
In the National Audit Office today, there are auditors with qualifications. One of our problems is that they are tempted away by a number of accountancy firms which want them because they have a level of expertise which will be valuable to them. With rates of pay as they are in Government or associated services, of which we are one, that is one of our problems. However, it shows that those people not only have the advantage of being auditors but, by seeing the other Government Departments, can spread information and understanding between one Department and another and between Government and the private sector about the best practices to be adopted. The relationship between the National Audit Office and the private sector is considerable, and the two are able to have a great deal of cross-fertilisation.
The first point I shall deal with in relation to the National Health Service is coronary heart disease. The twenty-sixth report of the Session 1988–89 showed that 180,000 people of working age died each year from coronary heart disease within their working lives—which is the important aspect. That cost the National Health Service £500 million a year. That is bad. What are the Government and the National Health Service doing about it? They are spending about £10 million. Therefore, the problem is costing £500 million and £10 million is being used to try to reduce the incidence of coronary heart disease.
We could look at the figures and say that they are wrong because there may be other factors involved. There are, but they are all on the same side. Ten years ago, the incidence of coronary heart disease in this country was roughly the same as in many other comparable industrial countries. During those 10 years, a number of those countries have experienced rapidly declining levels of heart disease. Our level has come down a little, but hardly at all, and in Scotland the level is still high. We can forget the money, although that obviously concerns us. Apart from the money, such disease causes misery, anxiety, worry and other problems which arise when the breadwinner, or often another member of the family, fails to make a proper recovery in hospital.
Paragraph 42 of our report states:
We acknowledge that the medical profession have a major role to play in the development and introduction of new treatments. However, we are surprised that the Department consider that they do not have a more positive contribution to make in this area. The wider use of cost-effective treatments has major value for money implications and we would expect

the Department to keep very closely in touch with possible developments and to take positive action to encourage the introduction of new treatments once these have been shown to be both medically acceptable and cost-effective.
We hope that the Department will take a different approach to those problems.
We go on to say that there is a serious mismatch between the resources and the demand for cardiac treatment. We deal with bypass graft operations and the fact that they are in short supply. In the Treasury minute, which is the response of the Government and the National Health Service, the Government accept that many deaths and disabilities caused by the disease can be prevented or reduced. With regard to the value of preventive campaigns, we understand from the minute that the Government accept that they will be given more impetus. The development of quantified targets is also being considered.
We like quantification. We know that there are limitations, and that in some cases quantification is difficult or almost impossible. However, we like the attempt to be made to quantify if only because we can check what is being done. We realise the reasons, difficulties and limitations. We understand the way that the Government are able to work. We strongly emphasise the quantification of achievements and, particularly, targets. The Government accept that there should be more emphasis on prevention rather than treatment, and we look forward to seeing that.
The fiftieth report of the Session 1987–88 deals with the issue of operating theatres and their use in the National Health Service. We looked at this because we knew, as does every hon. Member, that serious problems exist involving bottlenecks when certain surgery is undertaken. We asked where the bottlenecks mainly occurred. The National Audit Office found that they arose essentially in operating theatres in the National Health Service. To our surprise, we found that not much more than half of the operating theatres' available use was utilised. I am talking about not weekends or evenings, but the working day and week.
Some of the reasons why the operating theatres were not available were understandable and due to patients getting better or worse. However, we found that even when this led to cancellations, a system should have been devised so that those lower down the queue could be brought forward. The failure of consultants to turn up to carry out operations was a contributory factor in the failure to make the best possible use of operating theatres.
These were serious matters and accordingly the Committee produced a number of recommendations and submitted them in the report. One recommendation was that a record should be kept of areas in which there had been some improvement as a result of carrying out checks. I was pleased to receive this morning a copy of "Efficiency of Theatre Services", which has been published by the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland and the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland.
I should explain that after the Committee's report was published we ran into much opposition. It was alleged that we were criticising the consultants. I find the summary of their recommendations extremely valuable. They say that there should be close collaboration between surgical teams


and admitting officers and a regular revision of waiting lists. They support many recommendations which were opposed initially. I am grateful for their assistance.
We are always concerned about defence expenditure because it involves extremely large sums. I shall begin with the forty-eighth report on the royal ordnance factories. The turnover in 1986 was £550 million. We may differ on privatisations and the value of those operations, but the members of the Committee do not differ—I hope that there is not too much difference among hon. Members in the Chamber—on the need to get value for money for taxpayers.
The royal ordnance factories were sold off to British Aerospace for £190 million. That sum was effectively set off by various expenses amounting to about £50 million. We expressed concern that the Ministry did not explore possible redevelopment at Waltham Abbey or Enfield, and did not obtain a valuation based on redevelopment. The Committee noted that the taxpayer will not benefit from any redevelopment that is carried out by British Aerospace.
Valuation concerns us greatly. It can be taken for granted that it is important in any privatisation operation to obtain value for money. There must, however, be proper valuation. It is said that some privatisations can proceed on the basis that we look for the best price that we can get and accept that as the only price and the only way that the undertakings can be sold off. Another approach is to secure a proper and realistic valuation that is based upon all possible different uses of the undertaking that the Government wish to sell. That is the proper approach. I do not think that any individual would sell anything valuable without obtaining a proper valuation. That applies to a house or an object of great rarity, whatever it may be. Once a proper valuation has been secured, it is possible to compare that with what it is possible to obtain on a sale. If the sale price falls very much below the realistic valuation, it is open to the vendor to delay the sale.
I am worried that there have been few delays of sales while an examination is made of the way in which a sale will go ahead. The Committee has come down again and again in favour of tranches of sales. So often we sell a company or industry in one go, but gilts are sold in bits. They are sold over a period after a study of the market. Sales take place when it is assessed that the market is right, and it is a sophisticated exercise, but that has not been done in the privatisation of public undertakings. If an undertaking is sold in tranches and those who are concerned get it wrong in one instance, only a limited sum is involved. If that is done, it is possible to get a better price or a different price when a reassessment has taken place of the value of that which is being sold.
The Government acknowledged that those who were in control of the royal ordnance factories had been exploring the redevelopment of the Waltham Abbey and Enfield sites. They knew also that they had reached no definite conclusions. There was no proper alternative-use valuation because it was considered that that would produce a lesser figure than the existing use valuation. We have not completed our investigations into the royal ordnance factories, but the factories have been sold. We have had the benefit of an investigative session with the

consultants, who told us something about the methods of valuation that were available. It was a most valuable session, and it will form part of our subsequent report.
The forty-seventh report deals with major defence projects for the Session 1987–88. Each year we examine the major projects to ascertain whether we are getting value for money and to compare the actual expenditure with that which was anticipated. We studied a useful production of information entitled "Learning from Experience". We found that, within an equipment budget of £8·5 billion to £9 billion, £3 billion to £4 billion of expenditure was not foreseen when the projects were started. About half of the costs were incurred when the project entered full development, when we would have expected the sums involved to be more clearly understood and confirmed. This dismayed us greatly.
We look forward to considerable improvements in the Ministry of Defence. Sir Peter Levene has impressed the Committee in two respects in particular. The first involves competition. Sir Peter has stated again and again that he is trying to get more competition and that he has obtained it in several areas of production. There are, however, areas where it is not possible to obtain competition when dealing with large-scale projects, although it is possible to get it for some of the subcontracts. Sir Peter has asked for all subcontracts to be available for competition. We hope that in due course this will improve matters considerably. We look forward to evaluating the progress in due course.
A smaller but important matter is that we are paying rather more for some of the articles that are held in stores than we probably should. The Committee had much in mind the experience of the United States. Mr. Bowsher, who is the opposite number of the Comptroller and Auditor General in the United States, will be visiting us next week to give us the benefit of his advice, especially on defence projects and expenditure upon them.
It was found in the United States that they were paying about $1,300 for what appeared to be an ordinary ashtray that could be bought anywhere. The horrifying thought that occurred to me and many of my colleagues was, "How can we be sure that the same sort of thing is not happening here?"
Sir Peter said that the price of each article that is held in store should be made known so that when someone goes to the store and asks for an ashtray, or whatever, there will be an explosion when he finds that it will cost $1,300. That seems to be a simple and effective approach. The difficulty that Sir Peter experienced was in convincing those who supply articles to the Government that it would be in the interests of the Government, and possibly in their own interests, to adopt that approach. The suppliers said that they would not like others to know their prices.
It is easy to become a cynic. The Committee is not cynical—and I hope that it never will be—but it is somewhat sceptical about some of the claims. It is right to enter the discussions with that in mind. I understand that a number of companies have now accepted that idea, and we look forward to the results in due course.
The thirty-first report in the Session 1988–89 deals with the reliability and maintainability of defence equipment. Paragraph 3 states:
The Department have for many years been concerned about the reliability and maintainability of equipment purchased from Defence contractors. The Royal Air Force have estimated that unreliability currently costs it £500


million, or 20 per cent. of its annual operating budget. Based on this, the Services have estimated that unrealiability adds over £1 billion a year to support costs.
I understand that the Department believes that half of that amount is available for saving. That is important because half of the RAF fast jet fleet is not available at any particular time because of maintainability and reliability problems. We must ensure that safeguards are built in when the equipment is ordered. There must be an agreement so that the problems are dealt with then. We were surprised to hear that only 30 specialists are dealing with that matter in a Department with a procurement budget of £9 billion. If reliability cannot be assured at a critical time, there could be serious consequences. We are concerned about the rundown of the planned reliability and maintainability activities by contractors, and we want that to be improved.
In the Government's response, the Department agreed that the annual costs of unreliability at more than £1 billion were too high. It accepted that a sustained programme was needed to produce savings. It undertook to take positive and effective action to implement the recommendations of its management consultants who had investigated the problem. We look forward to an improvement. I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover is not with us. One of the great advantages is that the Committee does not take anything for granted. It will return again and again to these and other problems, and the Department knows that. It is aware of our interest and that we shall continue to look for improvements and changes.

Dr. Norman A. Godman: When the Committee returns to an examination of the royal ordnance factories, will it examine the circumstances surrounding ROF Bishopton, in Renfrewshire?

Mr. Sheldon: We are examining the whole sale again, with the advantage of the further report from the Comptroller and Auditor General.
The twentieth report of the Session 1988–89 deals with urban development corporations. A number of problems made the Committee feel rather uneasy. On the subject of controls over the disposals of land for development, paragraph 19 states:
The Corporation had generally sold land for commercial development by private negotiation rather than by inviting tenders from prospective developers. In 15 of the 16 cases examined, the NAO found that valuers' certificates had been obtained after sale negotiations had been completed, and were therefore less useful and provided less assurance on bids than independent pre-tender valuations.
The House will note that the language used in the report was restrained, which is typical of the Public Accounts Committee. We do not like to shout too loudly because there are always some horrors lurking that might demand a louder voice.
The London Docklands development corporation told the Committee that it had revised its valuation procedures and that in future the valuation of its properties for annual accounting purposes would be supplemented by valuation of individual sites before negotiations began and again at their conclusion. One example cited was that of a leaseholder who had sold his lease for about 10 times the amount that he had paid to the corporation two years previously. Although the transaction entailed a greatly increased scale of development, the LDDC was unable to secure any additional premium.
We need to be very careful when dealing with public money because it is much more sacrosanct than private money. Inefficiencies are sometimes associated with that—not too many, I hope—but it is important to remember that when people pay their taxes they must feel that they are paying them to incorruptible, sensible people who will be accountable for that money. People can take a flier in private industry, but we cannot do that when we are safeguarding other people's money. It is important that we conduct our affairs accordingly.
Paragraph 28 states:
We are concerned that the Department and the Corporation did not pursue the question of profit participation more forcefully with the original consortium; and we believe they should have taken much more positive steps to review the position as part of the negotiations in mid-1987.
Paragraph 29 states:
we recommend that the Department should require all Urban Development Corporations to take a tough stance in land negotiations, and in particular to seek an equitable return to the taxpayer in any future schemes where developers have the prospects of exceptionally high profits.
It is one of the safeguards that, if there are to be some unforeseen advantages, the taxpayer should have the confidence that part of them will come back to him. It is an essential part of the process.
I wish now to deal with another report, in which our language becomes a little more extreme. It is the first report in the Session 1988–89 on the management of the collections of the English national museums and galleries. We are dealing with the nation's historical, cultural and artistic heritage. In the last century we were fortunate to have great wealth, much greater than any other country, with resources available throughout the world to acquire enormously important and valuable collections of works of art and of cultural interest. They were collected at a time when there were a number of wealthy collectors. As we shall never again achieve the sort of world dominance that we achieved in the last century, we must carry out the wishes of those who gave those collections to our national museums and art galleries. The problem is that we are selling them.
I wish to make a personal observation which has nothing to do with the Committee. I apologise for intruding into the debate personal observations. Italy does not allow the export of much of its works of art—and, heaven knows, it has by far the largest proportion of works of art. It does not allow export, but unfortunately we do. It is our duty and responsibility sensibly to look after and cherish our works of art.
Paragraph 4 says:
The British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, in common with other national museums, face major concerns in the management of their collections. Over significant areas of the collections the position is deteriorating steadily, and in others it is at best being contained or only very slowly improved.
We looked at three institutions, but there are many others where we do not know what is happening, although we have our suspicions. It behoves anyone who has any responsibility in this area to take note of what we say about the three collections that we examined and the importance that we attach to them.
In paragraph 18 on the British museum and the Victoria and Albert museum we said:


The National Audit Office … examination identified many examples of objects stored in cramped, chaotic and overcrowded conditions, including a lack of temperature or humidity controls or air filtration systems.
Paragraph 20 goes on to say:
The backlog of conservation work was a particularly disturbing part of the C&amp;AG's Report. There were serious conservation problems in a number of areas and in some respects the position was worsening all the time.
It goes on to point out that
for example, 128 years had elapsed before a comprehensive survey of the National Art Library was carried out in 1985 which revealed serious and extensive problems with damage and deterioration, with major and minor repairs needed to thousands of valuable books and manuscripts. The Victoria and Albert Museum accepted frankly that this 'was a national disaster' and agreed that it"—
these are damning words, some of the most serious in our report—
'represented lasting and irreparable damage to some of the national heritage.'"—
In paragraph 21 on paper conservation at the Victoria and Albert museum we say:
On present staffing levels backlog conservation in this area alone was estimated at 200 years.
That is unacceptable. We are talking about priceless objects. We shall never have the opportunity to have such objects again. I hear of water pouring through the roof, irreparably damaging part of our national heritage, and of someone knocking over an expensive vase. These things belong to all of us, and it is shameful that we allow them to deteriorate. I was pleased to see that the Minister for the Arts received a substantial increase in funding, but I will be surprised if it is enough.
It must be understood that the PAC is not a spending body. We are urging spending for the purpose of conservation and the conservation or maintenance of what we own as a sensible way to proceed. Anyone who does not look to the roof of his house because he is trying to save money would be rightly condemned, not least by the PAC. If we do not look after our heritage, it will deteriorate. That is a foolish way to proceed and we draw attention to that whenever we see it.
The maintenance of roads is another area where, by failing to carry out repairs, we shall incur more expenditure in the end. The Committee expressed concern about the backlog in 1985–86, and we understood then that the Department's intention was to clear the backlog of maintaining motorways and trunk roads as quickly as possible. The Committee looked at the position again in 1989 and was concerned to find that progress had not continued. In 1988 we found that substantial funds, earmarked for maintenance, had been diverted to sustain new construction. The Committee estimated that the decision to transfer money from maintenance to new construction would lead to extra costs over the next three to four years and we doubted whether the benefits of new construction would outweigh the disadvantages of lost maintenance, but the Government did not agree.
It is much more attractive to open a new road or motorway than it is to start coning off and spending money on repairing the surface of a road. The sad thing is that the original decisions were so awful. Everyone knows that the state of our motorways is a scandal. They have far too short a life, and when they were built we did not even know which was the best method of construction. There were gaps in our knowledge and the main objective seemed

to be to cut a new ribbon. However, the Department of Transport says that the elimination of backlogs remains a key objective. Of course it must remain so. But to what extent is the deterioration continuing, and how soon will it be before we have relatively cone-free roads able to take the traffic? That is the argument that we put forward to which we shall return on a number of other occasions.
Allied to that was the fifteenth report on road planning in the 1988–89 Session. That dealt with the way in which roads were being planned. The Department of Transport estimated the benefit to cost ratio as 1·9:1. Traffic flows are central to the appraisal, and the PAC examined those. We felt that back checking had been insufficient. Whenever estimates are made, they should be checked with the end result. That is the real source of knowledge. That is the way in which we can find out what went wrong so that we can learn for the future. We said that back checking is a vital ingredient of planning and control.
The National Audit Office looked at 41 schemes and found that 22 per cent. were within 20 per cent. of traffic forecasts. I will come in a moment to the way in which those figures were calculated. The rest, nearly half, varied from minus 50 per cent.—50 per cent. less traffic on the road than had been expected—to 105 per cent., and that was called reassuring.
In paragraph 14, the Committee did not accept
that the Department's traffic flow forecasting is as reliable as it could and should be. We find their explanations of the variations that have occurred to be unconvincing; and we are concerned at the Department's reluctance to accept that there is a serious problem, which we feel verges on complacency.
We felt that to be a serious matter and regretted the method to calculate the figures. They were calculated on the increased level rather than the reduced one, so that the figures appeared to be almost double what they were. The figures were presented in far too favourable a light, and the Committee wanted to examine that further in due course.
Only one or two sessions a year of the PAC deal with Northern Ireland, but we cover a number of important matters each year. Let me take one to give the flavour of some of the criticisms that we have to make on the way in which public money is being applied. I refer to the twelfth report of the 1988–89 Session.
Up to 1980 the Northern Ireland Housing Executive had private insurance. It found that that was a relatively sensible way to proceed. Then it became a little worried at the size of the premiums, and it made changes. In the eight years from 1972–73 to 1979–80 it paid £1·69 million in insurance premiums. It then decided to terminate its insurance cover, and from April 1980 the executive carried its own risk for public liability claims. The claims increased from £1·6 million to 13·5 million over the next eight years, and there are claims for a further £19·8 million outstanding.
The Committee suspected that there were a number of fraudulent claims. The Department stated that
although a number of fraudulent claims had been identified, it was impossible to quantify the size of the problem.
The Department also stated that it would contest more than one claim from a household, and that the computer enabled such occurrences to be identified. The Committee commented:
We take a most serious view of fraud and we urge the Department and the Executive to do more to quantify the extent of this malpractice and to take all necessary steps to eradicate it.
In one instance, we found that claims for injury resulting from inadequate road repairs had been made by every


householder on the estate in question. Clearly that suggests the possibility of fraud, and similar examples should be closely examined. We look forward to that being done. The Committee also recommended
a system of inspection … which enables defects to be identified and repaired
so that the possibility of claims can be reduced. Certain legal requirements make it more difficult to pursue such claims in England and Wales, and we asked that that aspect be examined with a view to conforming with the practices observed in England and Wales.
The next report to which I refer concerns the quality of service given to the public by Department of Social Security local offices, which is a problem of which members of the Committee have personal knowledge. We know that the 500 local offices deal with about 23 million callers each year. The Committee was told that callers wait for a much shorter time than it found to be the case. I put to Mr. France, the then permanent secretary to the Department, this matter:
We have your assessment that waiting times"—
that is, the time that elapses before a caller is seen by a counter clerk—
averaged 24 minutes for supplementary benefit claimants and 7 minutes for contributory benefit claimants. We know from the Gallup survey"—
which the National Audit Office commissioned—
that their average waiting time is 70 minutes.
Naturally, the Committee was rather more impressed by the Gallup figures than by those of the Department.
We were provided with a fascinating insight into what happens in social security offices. Right hon. and hon. Members will have visited such offices on many occasions and seen the queues there for themselves. So when the members of the Committee were told that the average waiting time is only seven minutes, they knew that the Department's figure could not be right. We know what goes on in this world, and we were subsequently able to give advice on desirable improvements to the system.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Does my right hon. Friend accept that there is a disturbing consistency in the inaccuracy of the Department's statistics? I shall be alluding to that aspect in my contribution, if I am fortunate enough to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Sheldon: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's intervention.
Not only were the Department's statistics wrong, but problems arose in understanding the needs of claimants. There was wide variation between the requests made and the responses. A number of callers at DSS offices require only a little advice, but we found that some offices were very chary about divulging information on the benefits that are available, even though people have a right to ask Government Departments where they stand and how much they are entitled to receive.
Many offices provide a poor service. Piercy recommended four important improvements to help bring about an enhanced performance in offices whose standards fell below those required. It was found that claimants were not being provided with enough help and advice and that offices should play a more positive advisory role. When a person is in real trouble, that is the time when he needs the best possible advice. It is clearly wrong that people should be turned away with a curt dismissal.
The Committee suggested that surveys such as that which it had commissioned should be undertaken by all Departments having contact with the public to evaluate the effectiveness of their service. The Public Accounts Committee followed up the original Treasury minute with the third report of 1988–89. As a result of those two reports bearing on the same area of examination, the Department of Social Security implemented most of the recommendations. It accepts that desirable standards of service and delivery should be defined and monitored, is paying particular attention to offices performing below tolerable standards, and is promoting a more positive and consumer-friendly image. Customer opinion surveys will also be used to validate claimants' reactions to the service.

Dr. Godman: Did the then permanent secretary to the Department explain why results of test cases by social security commissioners are not conveyed to claimants who may be directly affected by them?

Mr. Sheldon: No, we did not examine that aspect—but my hon. Friend makes an important point. The result of test cases is the kind of information that is not being made available to claimants. Government Departments must realise that the people who come to them should be treated as customers. I tell any new agent that, whenever a person comes through the door of my constituency surgery, I am on that person's side—no matter what he says. That is an extreme example of a Member of Parliament having a rather different reaction from someone working in a social security office. Nevertheless, I want that approach to be adopted more widely. I want help to be given and surveys undertaken so that the right help is available to people at a time when they are often in great distress. I appreciate that it will take time for that to happen.
Many people compare the public service with the private sector, but that is not a fair comparison. In the private sector, anyone who comes through the door is treated as a customer from whom profit can be made, so he or she is usually very welcome. But anyone coming through the door of an office wanting help from a public service is viewed as someone who is bringing extra problems. Nevertheless, the approach should be brought more in line one with the other, despite the obvious problems that arise.
That is the final report to which I allude, but I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members will deal with a number of others. I hope that I have illustrated the work of the Committee, which continues at the expense of its members' time and effort but to the advantage of both the House and the country.

Sir Michael Shaw: My first duty—not for the first time, I am glad to say, but I regard it as by no means a routine privilege—is to thank the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon). He does a tremendous job, bringing a team together, cutting out partisanship and keeping us all to the point, and he does it in a way that allows us all to make a fair contribution. The right hon. Gentleman so organises affairs that the Committee's members take a real interest in their work, and that—as I shall demonstrate later in my speech—has not always been the case in Public Accounts Committees.
Not long ago we benefited from the attention of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). I must confess that that was the first occasion on which I have known the hon. Gentleman to adopt an entirely "establishment" attitude to Select Committees. Be that as it may, however, I found myself wondering what would happen to Parliament if we merely sat here in the Chamber, with no committees of any kind working outside it. In my view, the power of the Government and the Front Bench would become intolerable—cynics might say, "even more intolerable", but I would not go as far as that.

Dr. Godman: May I point out that not all Opposition Members agree with their hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner)? As a Scots Member of Parliament, I deeply deplore the continuing failure to appoint a Select Committee to monitor and oversee the Scottish Office in the way that the PAC performs its important role.

Sir Michael Shaw: The hon. Gentleman has made a fair point, but I will not pursue it now.
I agree wholeheartedly with what the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne said about the Comptroller and Auditor General. His office has taken on great new responsibilities, and is, I think, performing its task very well, making important progress in relation to value for money and benefiting hon. Members generally and PAC members in particular.
Let me take up the right hon. Gentleman's comment about museums. The Committee discovered that a serious problem had arisen: incredibly valuable antiques and works of art, collected from all over the world, had been stored very inadequately here, there and everywhere. Moreover, no one seemed to know much about what was in stock, or—if that was known—where it was stored. That is a sad indictment.
I feel that two factors were responsible for much of the problem. The people who had to draw up demands for money each year, and explain why they wanted it, may have been punch-drunk; I certainly do not think that they spelt out a proper, hard-hitting, detailed demand every year. In a sense, I blame the Treasury: the habit had grown up—or perhaps had been there from the beginning—of simply allocating a bulk sum to the Department, and then leaving the Department to sort it out on the basis of a bit here and a bit there.
Our inquiry revealed a special need for conservation, stock-taking and general presentation of the tremendous fund of museum articles. Surely the needs of famous institutions such as the Victoria and Albert museum should be considered separately by the Treasury. I gained the impression from the Treasury representative, however, that it stuck pretty firmly to its original attitude: "We have heard these 'special case' arguments before; we will simply allocate a sum to the Department, and it can get on with sorting everything out". In such circumstances, the case for special need must be spelt out clearly—as I do not think that it has been in the past—and the Treasury must then respond.
So much for the particular; now let me deal with more general aspects. We have a mass of reports and Treasury replies to discuss. I feel that we must accept that the purpose of this debate should change, for how can we

examine so many reports in any worthwhile detail in such a short discussion? Furthermore—and this is the real question—do we need to? In general, I think not.
There have been changes at Westminster. The Select Committees have come into being, and, since the National Audit Act 1983, the status of the Comptroller and Auditor General and the National Audit Office have also changed and developed. The procedure of the PAC has changed, too. When I first joined the Committee—I hope that the House will forgive me for going back such a long time—we all sat around all afternoon and were lucky if we got a question in, as the Chairman seemed to do all the questioning. The reports were tiny, and very insignificant; they were not a patch on those of today.
Our hearings are now public, and both press and radio have access to them. Next will come the intrusion—if that is the right word—of television, which will allow the public to see something of our work. All that means that the effects of our deliberations are felt much earlier than they used to be.
Let us examine the history of a typical report. First, the Comptroller and Auditor General produces his report, along with a press statement. If the contents are newsworthy, they will receive considerable coverage—we need only observe the coverage currently given to the Rover report. Then the PAC meets—not secretly, as it used to, but publicly—and examines the witnesses. If that proves newsworthy there is more press coverage, as the press and the BBC attend if they wish. Then we produce our report. Again, there will probably be a press statement, and the Chairman may consider it appropriate to hold a press conference.
That is the time at which the effect of what we have been doing is felt. It is not felt a year later, when we meet here—and let us be blunt: only PAC members turn up on these occasions, apart from one honourable exception, who is a volunteer, and the Front Benchers, who are pressed men.
The old purpose of the debate is no longer relevant. Its objective was to create discussion. We are not creating discussion today, but I hope that we have shifted and influenced people's opinions because the press and other media have been watching us; therefore, we can have maximum effect. Of course we receive a reply from the Treasury, and if that is not satisfactory we can call back the witnesses and have another go, with the same press coverage. None the less, it is right that we should meet periodically here in the Chamber to discuss the way in which the Public Accounts Committee is working, the effect that it is having, and the various changes that it may seek.
We should also consider how our work affects other Select Committees. We are very careful to act only within our remit, as a form of audit but looking for value for money, without becoming involved in policies. If it is felt that wider discussion in the House is needed on any report, it can be achieved either by moving a motion or by using a supply day. The old title of the debate has gone and we must now look ahead and debate the Public Accounts Committee reports in a different way.
We might consider the conditions under which we work in Committee Room 16. As our proceedings attract greater public interest as television will be coming in from time to time, that room is quite inadequate for our purposes. I suggest, as I have suggested many times before, that the adequacy or otherwise of Select Committee rooms should be considered by the appropriate Committee of the House.
I turn to another general topic arising out of two of the reports—the public sector borrowing requirement. I shall refer first to the report on the Commonwealth Development Corporation and then to the report on British Nuclear Fuels.
I believe that the definition of the public sector borrowing requirement needs to be reviewed as it is sometimes a definition of convenience. That does not necessarily mean that it is a bad thing, but it is certainly suspect. People may be using the terms of the PSBR to put something in balk that should not really be in balk. I draw two examples of that from two of the Committee's reports.
Pages 4 and 5 of the evidence in the twenty-ninth report on the Commonwealth Development Corporation refer to a subsidiary company in the Cayman Islands. Its purpose is to borrow and lend money abroad. I asked:
Will any borrowings that are made under this system be backed by the Treasury?
and I received the reply that effectively they would. I was told:
They will effectively be under Government guarantee. That will of course ensure that they are obtained at the keenest interest rate. These borrowings have to be approved by us.
—that is the Government. So I asked;
Are they included in the PSBR or anything of that nature?
I was told:
They are not included in the PSBR.
I said:
Perhaps we might turn straightaway to Mr. Beastall
—of the Treasury—
and ask him why it should not come under the PSBR.
He said:
The reason for the classification, as has already been implied, is in the case of money which is borrowed abroad for lending abroad. That transaction, unless the debt becomes bad—and I accept that is a different situation but in the normal situation—would have no impact on the United Kingdom economy",
to which I replied:
That is very interesting.
On pages 4 and 5 of the thirty-third report on monitoring and control of British Nuclear Fuels my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow), who I am sorry cannot be with us this afternoon, asked:
Since all the shares save one are owned by a Government Department, since the whole of the borrowing of the Company is guaranteed by the Government, why is it that it is treated as if it were not a nationalised industry so far as the treatment of being a public sector company is concerned?
I shall skip the long answer and read out the short answer:
There is a difference between guaranteeing the indebtedness and providing all the finance from Government departments.
Apparently, the difference is between guaranteeing indebtedness and providing the money.
Frankly, that shows that if the Government want a Government or local government institution to be outside the PSBR, they can arrange that, but if they do not want such an institution to be outside the PSBR they block it by saying, "I am sorry, but that is within the public sector borrowing requirement and therefore it cannot be done." That is basically wrong. Although it may be convenient, it may be helpful to allow Government bodies or local government bodies to be placed outside the PSBR. Where finance could be arranged by Government or local government bodies, making it clear that capital money is required on commercial grounds rather than on PSBR

grounds, that should be allowed. That may not always be the case, but if exceptions can be made in the cases that I have quoted, other exceptions should be made.
I am thinking particularly of housing. The alternative arrangements that we are making for new housing are being blocked by the PSBR. If capital expenditure is limited by the PSBR, it is impossible to achieve any continuity in capital expenditure as one year things may be looking good and the next year they may be looking bad. The PSBR is altered year by year by political needs which are often entirely different from commercial needs. For those reasons, the evidence in various reports shows that the PSBR is not always used in the best possible way.
I do not want to hog the whole evening, but I believe that it is a privilege, although sometimes an onerous privilege, to be on the Public Accounts Committee. We work as a team and, despite what the hon. Member for Bolsover says, manage to work without party strife. If we did not succeed in doing so, we should not be doing our duty by the House or by the country.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: I was interested by the speech of the hon. Member for Scarborough (Sir M. Shaw), which I discussed with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) as he was making his points.
I wish to refer to the eighteenth report on financial reporting to Parliament, 1988–89, and the twenty-fourth report of the same year on the Department of Social Security's operational strategy.
The report on financial reporting to Parliament deals with the arrangements for the financial reporting to Parliament of public expenditure. The main financial documents are the supply estimates, which are derived from the public expenditure survey and the public expenditure White Paper. They represent the Government's formal request to Parliament for cash to finance the major part of Government expenditure.
The objectives of financial reporting were set out by a previous Public Accounts Committee. They were to provide Parliament systematically with information on performance which is reliable as an assurance of the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which Departments are operating services, and as the basis for selective inquiries.
The supply estimates, which are published annually, cover almost all Government expenditure, such as on the Foreign Office, the Home Office and defence. They cover all the Departments, but they do not cover two other sectors, about which I should like to say a few words. The first is GCHQ, and the second is Government expenditure on the security services, which comes under the heading of the secret vote.
The supply estimates index lists all the expenditure headings of Departments, but there is no reference to GCHQ. Yet it consumes almost £1,000 million worth of public money, which is a substantial sum. Parliament cannot question the use of those moneys, and there is no reporting to Parliament of how they are used. The money that is needed by that Department is, in effect, laundered through a number of votes for various Departments in such a way that Members of Parliament cannot follow or question the allocation of resources.
The second sector is the secret vote. The public should be aware that in the current year the Government propose to spend £125 million on the security services under that classification. Under present arrangements, the service is required only to submit to the Cabinet Office what is in effect an invoice for its expenditure for the following year—the document that I have here and which is published in the supply estimates—and it is awarded that amount. Parliament cannot ask questions about the use of those moneys. It is not that hon. Members might want to interfere or even queston the operational use of those moneys but that they do not know how many people are employed, where they work, what generally they are responsible for doing or what their regional obligations might be. We are unable to question that considerable amount of expenditure, which represents £2·50p for every man, woman and child in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Tim Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman say what advantage there would be to Parliament in having that information? By definition, all the operations and details of the secret services' activities must be secret. Can the hon. Gentleman cite any western country where such details are available?

Mr. Campbell-Savours: In the United States of America, such material is available to a Congressional committee, which meets in private and is staffed by senior members of Congress. It never leaks and it investigates the facts which are of interest to its members in establishling whether resources are being used effectively. That is all that we need in the United Kingdom. I have never suggested that the security services should report to the Public Accounts Committee. I believe that a Scrutiny Committee of the House should be set up to deal with the financial accountability of the security services. Such a development is inevitable—it is merely a question of when the necessary Government commitment will be made.
The problem is that when the Public Accounts Committee has raised these matters on previous occasions, Departments under successive Governments have felt loth or constrained about whether such information, if given to Parliament, would be properly used. They have questioned the ability of Select Committees to retain that information as private, which is why I wholeheartedly condemn the fact that a document given to the Public Accounts Committee under conditions of confidentiality has been leaked in the past few days to The Guardian. I understand that the press may have found it exciting copy, but in so far as newspapers know that it is inevitable that that information will surface in another form, probably as part of one of our reports at a later stage, they should be far more circumspect about the information that they provide. I am sure that newspapers will always find hon. Members willing to provide such information, but by publishing it they compromise our Committees and make it even more difficult for us to convince Departments that we are reliable and capable of maintaining the confidentiality of documents until there is a need to publish them, and they serve the arguments of those who argue against the accountability for which I am pressing, certainly in relation to GCHQ and the security services generally.
The second report is the twenty-fourth report on the Department of Social Security's operational strategy. The

background to the report is that since 1982 the Department has had under development a substantial 1·8 billion programme for the computerisation of the Department, replacing many of the current manual procedures. The aim of the strategy is to provide, through a series of interconnected projects, access to area computer centres by 450 local social security offices and 840 unemployment offices, which entails the use of 33,000 visual units.
The Public Accounts Committee has always been assured, certainly by the Department's accounting officer, that the system will work. The hon. Member for Staffordshire, Moorlands (Mr. Knox) asked the Under-Secretary of State for Social Security about the progress of the computerisation programme. In reply, the Minister said:
The Department's highly complex £1·7 billion strategy for the computerisation of the payment of social security benefits is proceeding as planned. The pilot exercise in 23 local offices has been completed and the systems are being introduced nationally office by office."—[Official Report, 27 November 1989; Vol. 162, c. 430.]
That reply suggested that everything was going fairly well. When we were discussing such matters earlier this year, in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), we were given an assurance by Mr. Partridge of the Department. Speaking about the programme of computerisation and the local office projects, he said:
The LOP ones will be very fully tested indeed. They go through about six states of testing and they will be tested to death and will work, I am quite confident of that".
That was on 1 February this year. His reply was nonsense and I believe that the accounting officer knew that when he gave it.
Several statistics have been produced to substantiate claims about the operational efficiency of the system. I understand that the statistics are available nationwide, but I shall deal with the statistics from the Workington office in my constituency. To measure efficiency, one must take into account the availability of systems to departmental officials. The Department's statistics show that the system was working for 89 per cent. of the time in the week ending 5 November and 87 per cent. of the time in the week ending 12 November. Those are the Department's figures. I suggest that they alone indicate a loss of a great deal of time.
The statistics are also highly inaccurate, as they are based on averages. The programme and the local office projects cover three different areas of calculations—retirement pensions, departmental central index and income support. If we ignore the averages, and consider each area separately, we find different statistics. In the week ending 5 November, the system for retirement pensions in Workington was available for only 74·4 per cent. of the time, the departmental central index was operational 100 per cent. of the time, and the income support system for 91·6 per cent. of the time. In the week ending 12 November, the retirement pension system was available 89·7 per cent. of the time, the departmental central index 93·7 per cent. of the time and the crucial income support system, which represents the main body of the office's work, only 76·3 per cent. of the time. For nearly a quarter of the time in that week, the income support computerised programme was not operational in Workington.
Such figures have major implications for the level of service. By averaging all the statistics, the departmental central index—which is the least used and to which there is least access—drags up the average level of availablity, particularly for income support, and completely distorts the statistics.
I understand that in October there were 14 interruptions to the Livingstone mainframe computer service to local offices. For income support, most of the errors in software arise in priority areas such as arrears payments—a highly sensitive area for customers. There are allegedly more than 80 errors in the current software and the mainframe computer on pensions is overloaded. Breakdowns in the system, which when complete will have cost the taxpayer in effect almost £2 billion, are leading to a great reduction in morale among staff in the Department. In Bolton, the position is very bad and morale has almost been destroyed.
It is intended that the programme will be fully operational by October next year on what I call big bang day but the Department refers to as national roll-out. From what I am told, the system will not be working by that date. The Department has many questions to answer on that.
What are the implications of the £1·8 billion investment programme for employment? The Department's figures are a complete fabrication. The Department says, and the National Audit Office report states, that by spending billion 20,186 jobs will be cut. The Department states that job reductions are crucial to the viability of operational strategy. When the Department's officials came before the Committee we were told that staff would indeed be lost. In my view, the projected savings will not arise. Managers in various parts of the country say that it is unlikely that any more than half the savings in staff will be made. However, senior managers say that if savings are not made on staff, cuts will have to he made in other areas of the service to ensure that the Government fulfil their expenditure commitments. That is unrealistic and impracticable because it will lead to a major reduction in service across the country, particularly in offices where there is a heavy workload.
I have looked at the figures for the office in Workington in detail. Like every hon. Member, I occasionally visit my local office and ask questions, but on the most recent occasion, as I asked questions I carefully noted what staff told me as I walked around the office. I was told that in Workington 84 jobs were cut in 1987–88, 79 in 1988–89 and 74 in 1989–90. There has been a steady reduction as computers have come on line and a further 11 are to be cut, leaving a complement of 62 by June next year. I put it to Ministers that that complement will not be sufficient in Workington. The reductions in staff will jeopardise the service and lead to a major reduction in the quality of service to the customer.
I do not question the need for computerisation. I am thoroughly in favour of it if it leads to the faster provision of service, if it works, if it means that people are in and out of the office more quickly, and if it makes access to material data on particular people easier. However, I object to misrepresentation of the facts to Parliament to substantiate the expenditure.
We are told that the computer system is to be fully operational by October 1990. Yet the staff cuts in Workington—I assume that it will be the same in every other part of the country—are to be made by July next

year before the computer is fully operational. The same will apply in every hon. Member's constituency. Every office will face the same difficulty. The cuts are based on what I can only describe as doctored statistics to substantiate the repeated claim of Ministers and civil servants that everything is on line.
The system is not working as it should. Departmental officials know the truth and they are telling Members of Parliament because many of us are talking about what is happening in that Department. Action needs to be taken now.
Why have all the problems arisen? My conclusion is that the computer was bought from the wrong firm. I understand that by waving the Union Jack one can invariably land major public-sector contracts. The contract was won by Imperial Chemicals, which I am told produced the equally disastrous Camelot computer 10 years ago. If we are to introduce computerisation affecting many Departments and tens of thousands of people across the country, Departments have a responsibility to buy what is right although it may not necessarily appear to be in the best interests of the country at the time. It has major implications for the operational effectiveness of a Department.
Departmental officials sometimes provide inaccurate information. In February, I questioned the answers given to me on the operations of the social fund microcomputer. I was told that my data from a research project carried out in several offices in the north of England were inaccurate. I checked with my sources, talked to departments and was told that the information was correct. Officials should not treat members of the PAC as though we were idiots. 'We know what is going on because we can ask questions. Responsibility for answers should be more direct, even if the Government find the answers uncomfortable. For example, Mr. Nichol recently gave evidence about the NHS. He is involved in a great deal of controversy about the ambulance dispute. He gave the Committee good, solid evidence based on what I believe to be the most objective assessment of what was happening. He did not hide the truth, but simply put it to the Committee. I pay tribute to him for that, and that is the approach that I shall expect from all departmental officials in the future.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) is unfortunately no longer present, but I am sure that he is busy elsewhere in the House. He must understand that the House has to have a mechanism which enables Members to probe deeply into a matter and test details, especially when the truth comes out. Hon. Members must have access to officials to question them in detail on matters of great interest. The Floor of the House does not offer us that opportunity. It is good for backchat across the Dispatch Box—once in a while a Minister slips up and we score a point but at the end of the day it is the Select Committees which offer us the only opportunity to inquire in depth into a particular matter.

Mr. Michael Shersby: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is a great pity that the invisible hon. Member for Bolsover is not in his place? If he were to participate in the debate, he would have before him more than 40 reports from the PAC going into great detail which our Chairman, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon), has described so vividly tonight. That would have provided the hon. Gentleman with an


admirable opportunity to question Government expenditure in many areas, basing his comments on facts, which would be a nice change for him.

Mr. Campbell-Savours: The hon. Gentleman may be surprised to learn that my hon. Friend deals in facts and does his homework on the many issues in which he is involved.
I have had private discussions with my hon. Friend. He does not recognise Select Committees as a forum for such inquiries. He is inclined to go directly to organisations to secure the details which we can obtain in our proceedings. I do not condemn him for his strongly held view that a consensual relationship develops across such Committees, and it is true in this instance. I can defend that because by the nature of our reports inquiring minds are gathered together. We are all dedicated to securing value for money and the most cost-effective use of public resources.
Unfortunately, I shall not be present to hear the replies as I have to return to my constituency on the 8.45 plane from Heathrow. I apologise to the hon. Member who is to speak next. I shall read the hon. Member's speech and also the replies. I ask the House to forgive me for leaving early.

Mr. Richard Page: I have had the privilege to serve on the Public Accounts Committee for two years. If ever I had any doubts about whether our work was worthwhile, they were dispelled by the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). When in my political life I do anything diametrically opposed to what he recommends, it is a good weather vane, showing that I am making the correct political decisions.
I have a mild confession to make. In Committee yesterday I said that when I started to serve on it I worried about whether the flood of reports, with their varying degrees of horror, would continue indefinitely. There were wry smiles from my colleagues and stifled guffaws from one or two who are battle hardened. The flood of reports has continued unabated. That more than anything else justifies strengthening, supporting and providing more assets to the Committee in its work so that we can produce value for money for taxpayers.
I pay tribute to the National Audit Office for the high quality of its reports. In a debate such as this we are spoilt for choice. If, heaven forbid, I ever wanted to filibuster, PAC reports would give me ample ammunition and would ensure that I did not retrace covered ground.
This evening I have chosen to talk about road planning and coronary heart disease. I am well aware that in choosing coronary heart disease I am following in the footsteps of our worthy Chairman, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon). I join my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough (Sir M. Shaw) in expressing my appreciation of our Chairman's leadership and the way in which he keeps us away from the pitfalls of policy. I understand that at the weekend he will be given the freedom of Tameside, and I congratulate him on that worthwhile honour.
I have chosen those two subjects because the Treasury and departmental responses to them are different in nature from the response to my chosen subject last year—the Charity Commission. My hon. Friends on the Committee called it a disaster looking for an opportunity. The

Treasury response was immediate. It put extra officers on the job to ensure that the Charity Commission was not abused and that the millions of pounds a year given to charities were correctly applied. The responses this year have been described as less than urgent.
The twenty-sixth report reminds us that coronary heart disease kills 180,000 people a year. I am not happy with the speed of introducing and spreading best practice. The Department of Health's response to the number of lives lost is not co-ordinated as it is for the treatment of AIDS and alcohol abuse, for which ministerial committees have been established. An analysis of the 34 health districts in England has shown that a quarter of them did not even mention the prevention of heart disease in their programmes for 1988–89. In international terms, the United Kingdom has one of the highest death rates from this terrible disease. It is 298 per 100,000 in Northern Ireland and Scotland and 243 per 100,000 in England and Wales compared with 230 in the United States, 79 in Spain and 45 in Japan.
As a further example of our laid back approach, I should like to bring in the question of the targets for coronary artery bypass grafts as a case in point. The Welsh Office has decided to adopt a higher figure of 400 to 500 operations per million of population. The response from the Department of Health is that the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons are preparing a report on the topic. When that advice is available, the Department will no doubt leap into action and consider whether a new target should be set. I suggest that the colleges and the Department of Health should have a view in place at the moment. They have international comparisons to hand, and attention to the spread of best practice could be a little quicker.
Putting aside the present ambulance dispute, another worrying aspect is the wide range and variety of policies adopted by ambulance crews. We must remember that 30,000 people die of heart attacks within the first two hours. Scotland has a policy of fitting its ambulances with defibrillators and of training crews in their use. That is positive thinking. The British Heart Foundation is working to achieve that. It will cost about £2 million, and the foundation is working with the Heart Start Scotland campaign.
Seven of the nine districts in Wales are seeking to introduce extended training for ambulance crews in heart disease. What is the position in England? The accounting officer was not too certain about how many ambulances had defibrillating equipment or about the number of crews trained in its use. The National Audit Office said that it is about 30 per cent. However, we find that some districts ask their ambulance crews to use defibrillators while others positively discourage their use. One of our ex-colleagues died of a heart attack in his 40s. There is a strong view that if a defibrillator and a crew trained in heart resuscitation had been available, he could still be in the House representing his constituency.
I asked Sir Christopher France whether whether there were any regions or districts that did not train ambulance staff in the use of defibrillators, and his answer was yes. Like every other member of the Committee, sometimes when I left the Committee Room I said to myself, "I wish that I had asked another question. I wish that I had asked Sir Christopher whether, if he had a heart attack, he would like the ambulance staff who were picking him up to have


a defibrillator and a trained crew or whether he would have been prepared to hang on and wait until the door of the hospital appeared."

Dr. Godman: Or whether he would like to suffer the heart attack in Scotland.

Mr. Page: The hon. Gentleman is right, because the programme in Scotland will provide a far better service. Scotland is to be congratulated on that.

Mr. Tim Smith: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the most striking aspects of coronary heart disease is the vast imbalance between the amount that the Department spends on treatment, which is £500 million, and the amount that it spends on prevention, which is £10 million? Does he agree that prevention is better than cure and that there should be a reordering of priorities? Does he also agree that the most effective way to stop smoking is to increase the price of cigarettes? To put it mildly, it is unfortunate that in two of the last three Budgets the duty on cigarettes was not increased at all, which means that the real price has fallen. Would not that be the most effective way to discourage people from smoking?

Mr. Page: I agree with my hon. Friend, but I know that at least one of our hon. Friends will speak about that. I ought not to pick the bones completely clean but should leave one or two topics. My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith) has swept up some of the other topics that should be acted upon.
As I have said, there is a laid-back approach to introducing the spread of best practice. Each year 180,000 people die from heart disease and, as my hon. Friend says, prevention is better than cure. The Department of Health and the Treasury should allocate funds to saving lives rather than trying to treat people after the disaster has occurred.
The fifteenth report deals with road planning. That is a euphemism for what sometimes happens because I freely admit to the House, as I admitted to the Committee, that I and my constituents are scarred by the experiences of the M25, part of which passes through my constituency. I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield feels equal pain over the large number of holdups and congestion.
My first objection relates to the misleading way in which the figures about the relative success or failure of the forecasts are presented. We see from the report that about 18 of the 58 schemes are 20 to 40 per cent. above or below the forecast level and that in seven of the schemes the error exceeded 40 per cent. Anybody hearing that would say that, while it is not too good, it is not too bad either. The forecast is for 100 cars a day, and with an error of 40 per cent. there will be 140 cars.
Of course, that is not the way that the Department works. Its forecasting error is expressed as a percentage of the outturn. In my constituency it is not 50,000 cars that use the road but more than 100,000. That means that for every one car that was forecast to use the road there are more than two, and somehow the Department thinks that the increase represents 0·4 of a car. It is certainly more than double. The Department says that it will make clear the method that it uses. Its forecast should be used as the base line and not as a percentage of the outturn.
I hope that forecasting will be improved, as is suggested in the Treasury response. However, that response is an

amalgam of reasons and excuses about why the forecasts have turned out in the way that they have. They are a history of underestimates. It says that in future things will be better and that the sun will shine. I remember the M1 when it had just two lanes, but then it had to be extended. There is an explanation offered about the M25, especially where it passes through my constituency. The response says:
For example, for the Micklefield Green-South Mimms section, objectors argued that traffic could be accommodated for some years ahead by minor improvements to the existing road network.
The response said that the forecasts had to be vigorously defended at the inquiry against the constant criticism that they were too high. Of course the objectors said, "Do we need the motorway? Do we need all this disruption?", and thought that the existing road network could possibly accommodate the traffic. They would say that, because they based their objections on Department of Transport figures that were at least 100 per cent. out. Of course there will be chaos and confusion. While reading the reasons, excuses and promises for the future, I wonder whether there has been any real change in the nature of the beast.
The other thing that riles me about that section of the M25 is that during the inquiry we had already had the experience of the Chertsey to Staines section, which was open, and within months was oversubscribed and had exceeded the forecast figures. Some 100,000 vehicles were travelling through that section per day, and as it is only 10 or 11 miles from my constituency, surely it would have been realised that those cars had to go somewhere. They would not all flood on to roads in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield or to Heathrow airport but would continue to the beginning of the M1. It is peculiar that no one recognised that.
I take some comfort from the remarks in the Treasury's response, particularly the comment that it is more optimistic about future economic growth. I also take comfort from the response in the White Paper entitled "Roads for Prosperity". I hope that those responses will allow for a more realistic roads provision for the future. Good communications, whether through information technology, or physically through roads or rail services, are necessary if Britain is to be a successful industrial country.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary will make sure that forecasts err on the side of growth and prosperity rather than on the negative side of reduction. I also hope that my constituents will have a better level of environmental protection, and that the traffic will keep moving when the motorway is widened.

Dr. Norman A. Godman: Earlier this evening the hon. Member for Scarborough (Sir M. Shaw) described me as a volunteer attendant at this debate. I am pleased to take part in what has been, and hope will continue to be, a civilised debate. The only unfortunate thing about the debate has been its attendance, which is on a parallel with attendance levels late at night when we debate European Community affairs. That is a matter for regret.
The forty-fourth report from the PAC—an estimable Committee—is entitled "Quality of Service to the Public at


DHSS Local Offices". I wish to focus on the importance of test case decisions to the public, to the DSS and to the Treasury and the Government's response to the report.
Earlier today I asked my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) whether the senior official from the DSS, during cross-examination by the Committee, had offered an explanation of why the DSS had failed to publicise decisions taken by social security commissioners, which might have profound consequences for the Department and their clients—or claimants as they are traditionally known—and for the Treasury. The Treasury may be delighted by the apparent failure or unwillingness to publicise test case decisions. However, I am concerned for the claimants.
In paragraph 3 of the report, the Committee talks about the poor standard of service obtaining in some local offices. I shall defend the two offices in Greenock and Port Glasgow, as the two managers there—Mr. Derek Andrews and Mr. Brian Bryceland—run tight ships. I have always told them that I will not tolerate any of my constituents being treated in a discourteous or ill-mannered way by officials, who are also my constituents. I am pleased to say that complaints about discourteous or ill-mannered behaviour can be counted on the fingers of one hand over a period of some six years. I am sure that hon. Members of the Committee were not criticising the officers in my constituency.
I disagree with the Committee when it states, in paragraph 3(e), that it accepts that the staff levels in local offices are at a level appropriate for the work that they have to undertake. I do not believe that that is so. In some local offices the problem is exacerbated by a high level of staff turnover. Some new companies are beginning to come to Greenock and Port Glasgow, and one of those new companies recruited nine members of staff from the local DSS office. They were among the first 14 people employed by that company.
I agree entirely with the Committee when the Chairman and his colleagues say in paragraph 3(i) of the report:
We accept that in providing information and advice local offices must respond to the circumstances in which they operate. But we are not satisfied that all offices are adequately fulfilling the Department's role".
That is true of test case decisions.
I am pleased to see, in paragraph 28 on page ix, that the Committee members have taken note of the effects of the Department's efforts in Scotland to influence the content and timing of take-up campaigns. In the Strathclyde region there is a high level of co-operation between local DSS offices and the social work departments of the regional council. However, it is precisely at such moments that DSS officers do not have the facilities or staff to deal with the effects of take-up campaigns.
The Government seem to be somewhat complacent and I am less than satisfied with their response to a fine report.
Paragraph 14 on page 4 of the Government's response, entitled "Complementing Local Offices", claims that there is a new complementing system for local officers, based upon performance as well as work measurements, and it says:
It will seek to deploy staff to meet agreed standards of service".
That is not always the case. There is much more to be done in regard to the quality of the service provided by officials.
The example that I want to pursue follows a test case in August this year involving a commissioner and a Mr. Potts from Sunderland, who suffers from a common industrial disease called vibration white finger which is well known to my constituents and to those of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East (Mr. Brown). It is brought on by the constant use of vibratory percussive tools. In the shipyards, the man most susceptible to this peculiarly painful industrial disease would be the caulker burner, but it affects many thousands of former employees in shipbuilding, mining, forestry and construction.
On appeal, the commissioner decided that Mr. Potts was in a state of justifiable ignorance of his right to claim backdated disablement benefit in respect of his illness. If other claims based on that test case are made, payments may in some cases exceed £6,000. Hence, perhaps, the Treasury's response to the DSS's failure to publicise the test case, especially in shipbuilding constituencies. I believe that there are thousands of men who have suffered from this disabling industrial disease.
Following the test case, several take-up campaigns have been conducted—on Merseyside, the north-east, Northern Ireland and the west of Scotland. As I represent a shipbuilding constituency, hon. Members will not be surprised to hear that I am deeply involved in the latter.
In response to the campaign, the Government, advised by DSS officials, introduced a deadline of 1 November 1989 for claims. A group of Labour Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East, went to see the Minister of State at the DSS on 30 October and secured a significant concession from him and his officials. The Minister agreed to re-examine the decision to revoke regulation 13 of the Social Security (Industrial Injuries and Diseases) Miscellaneous Provisions Regulations 1986, which enables sufferers of industrial diseases to submit back-dated claims for benefit.
The Minister displayed his usual civility and courtesy. He also behaved with compassion. I just wish that his officials would show the same compassion when publicising the test case. We had to look for it ourselves. The Minister reinforced his decision by tabling a statutory instrument which enables late claims for industrial injuries and diseases to be determined in certain circumstances as though they had been made on 30 September 1986.
I am very happy to say that the Minister behaved with compassion. We offer our compliments to him. This is a victory for natural justice and common sense. The campaign is being conducted with expediency. The trade unions are playing an important role in it. The General, Municipal, Boilermakers and Allied Trades Union was instrumental in taking the test case to appeal. I am delighted to work with Robert Thompson, the Scottish secretary of that union, Duncan McNeil and other trade unionists in the local campaign.
The two DSS offices in Sunderland—Phoenix house and Dunn house—have received more than 20,000 applications for back-dated disablement benefit. Not all of them will be successful, and for some of those that are payments will be quite small, but they still impose something of a financial burden on the DSS, which is recognised honourably by the Minister, and on the Treasury.
By and large, applications in Sunderland are for white finger, although I understand that they call it dead finger in the north-east. I am told that a fellow went to see my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field)


claiming that he had vibration white bum because he had sat on machinery which vibrated. He claimed that that had given him the disease in his posterior.
The two DSS offices in Sunderland have co-operated with the local take-up campaign. I have been assured by my hon. Friends the Members for Sunderland, North (Mr. Clay) and for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin), and by David Towler, Brenda Fulton and Brian Chapman of the Sunderland Trades Union Congress unemployment centre, that local DSS officials have been extremely helpful and co-operative in the take-up campaign. They, and officials in Greenock and Port Glasgow, Belfast, Newcastle, Liverpool and elsewhere, confront considerable difficulties when dealing with such a torrent of claims. The two offices in my constituency have received more than 800 back-dated claims in the past three or four weeks.
My hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) talked about delays that people experience when they go to DSS offices. My worry, when there are take-up campaigns such as these that involve disablement claims, is that the procedure is so long-winded. A clerical assessment is made of the claim. That involves contacting the applicant's former employer, who may have disappeared or gone out of business, to assess the nature of the claimant's work. When a response is obtained, the adjudication officer makes a decision, yea or nay. If his decision goes against the claimant, the claimant has a right of appeal to a local appeals tribunal. That may lead to the claimant having to undergo a medical examination. A second adjudication officer assesses the medical opinion delivered by the medical practitioner. That may lead to the claimant having to appeal to a medical appeals tribunal, which may take several months. That appeals tribunal decision is given to the adjudication officer. That is a tiresome, cumbersome and time-consuming procedure.
There are few hon. Members here tonight, and few other than my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East represent shipbuilding constituencies. Many of the men with whom we are concerned are unemployed and some of them will never work again because of the extent of their disabilities. Some of them are pensioners who have been denied their legitimate rights as a result of the failure of the Department of Social Security to alert them to this test case.
The Government must seek to eliminate or at least to reduce those delays. Even at this late date, I want Ministers at the Department of Social Security to instruct local officers at Lady Lawson street in Edinburgh, on Tyneside, on Merseyside and in Ulster to initiate comprehensive local advertising campaigns which will reach out to such people.
I held a public meeting the other day. I paid for a fairly large advertisement in my local paper the Greenock Telegraph, and as it was a legitimate parliamentary expense, I shall ask the Fees Office to pay for the advertisement. Over 200 men turned up at the public meeting in Port Glasgow last Friday. My hon. Friends from the north-east of England and from Merseyside will confirm that in their areas too the advertising and publicity is being carried out by voluntary organisations such as unemployment centres which are, to put it bluntly, strapped for cash. It is the responsibility of the Department of Social Security to give some much needed assistance to men in those unpleasant circumstances.
In a constituency such as mine—and you have heard me say this before, Mr. Deputy Speaker—there has been a decline in the shipbuilding industry. Unemployment, according to the Government's statistics, is still at 14·8 per cent., which is way over the United Kingdom average. Thousands of my constituents are in receipt, directly or indirectly, of social welfare incomes, so they have a direct interest in the quality of service that is provided by the two local Department of Social Security offices. In the main, they receive a good service from hard-pressed officials. Senior officials at the Department of Social Security should not be cutting the number of employees at the Greenock and Port Glasgow local offices; they should be recruiting staff rather than running down staff numbers. Ministers and senior officials at the Department of Social Security must also treat claimants as clients.
I am deeply grateful to all the members of the Public Accounts Committee for examining the quality of performance of staff at local Department of Social Security offices and for enabling me to respond to their excellent forty-fourth report.

Mr. Michael Shersby: I am glad to follow the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman). It is a refreshing change for an hon. Member who is not also a member of the Public Accounts Committee to speak in this debate. I listened to him with great interest and I hope that he will contribute to future debates. It is also good to hear a Scottish voice in these debates.
Our debate this Session, like all previous debates, is concerned with the endless task of the Public Accounts Committee in searching for value for money, ensuring that the taxpayer receives value for money and, if not, discovering the reasons why and reporting them to Parliament. On Monday morning, when I was considering how I might contribute to this debate, my eye lighted on an article in The Times. The headline read:
Former Whitehall chief's criticism. Police `do not give value for money' ".
As the House knows, I am parliamentary adviser to the Police Federation. I put down my cup of tea to see who had written the article and who was being quoted. I was especially interested to see that the report concerned an article in the Municipal Journal of 24 November, commenting on the views of that endless searcher after value for money, Sir Brian Cubbon, the former permanent secretary at the Home Office, who before his recent retirement was a frequent witness at sessions of the Public. Accounts Committee.
I shall quote from this important article by Sir Brian. The headline read:
Treat 'em mean: keep 'em keen!
I thought that the article would be worth reading because I remembered so many occasions on which we had had such helpful discussions with Sir Brian on the importance of value for money at the Department of which he had the distinction of being the head for so many years. I hope that the House will forgive me if I quote briefly one or two interesting passages in the article.
Sir Brian wrote:
Lack of money is a powerful incentive for officials to prioritise and get the same results with less money. 'Treat 'em mean and keep 'em keen'. The Home Office's local services have been largely immune from this top-down pressure. Expenditure on law, order and protective services in the


United Kingdom has risen in real terms from £5 billion in 1978/79 to £8·4 billion in 1989–90… .A further factor has been the split in financial control, between the Home Office and local authorities. In the case of the police, probation and magistrates' court services, the specific grant from Central Government (51 per cent., 80 per cent., and 80 per cent., respectively) increased the onus on the Home Office to secure value for money in these services, but the main effort had still to come from local control and initiatives.… .In the case of the police, the Audit Commission paper Adminstrative Support to Operational Police Officers records the good progress made by the police, with Home Office and HM Inspectorate support, in streamlining procedures, reducing paperwork and using civilian support units. The scrutiny technique has been introduced. HM Inspectorate use statistical data, which records police activities in a uniform way, enabling trends to be monitored from year to year and amoung groups of forces. Financial information is being added.
It remains difficult to find measures, and recording systems, which reliably link increased police manpower with increased effectiveness and efficiency. It remains an open question whether we are getting value for money for all the extra inputs of recent years.… Police civilians have increased by 11 per cent. or more than 5,000 since 1985. Why is it that the number of police officers on patrol or operational duties has increased more slowly?
That was an interesting question for Sir Brian to ask. The Times expressed some surprise in reporting the article. It said:
The former Permanent Secretary at the Home Office has publicly criticized his former colleagues for failing to secure adequate value for the billions they spend on the police.
I thought that it was very interesting to have Sir Brian's views and we so much enjoyed listening to him when he came before the Public Accounts Committee that I thought that it might be helpful for the House tonight if I commented briefly on the forty-second report on financial control and accountability of the Metropolitan police and the courts and prison building programmes for which Sir Brian, while at the Home Office, was responsible.
I should first like to deal with the financial control and accountability of the Metropolitan police, that gallant body of men who keep our capital free of crime to such an extent and who serve us selflessly day and night. In our report we said:
Following our Forty-fifth Report, the Government accepted that the arrangements for securing the accountability of the Metropolitan Police needed 'further development' and said that 'a substantial programme of work to that end is in train.' We have not received the outcome of the work, and would welcome details as soon as possible, so that we can consider the matter further as necessary.
Some time has elapsed since that was said.
Paragraph 62 of the Treasury minute to the 42nd report —Home Office, Lord Chancellor's Department and Property Services Agency—responds to the Committee's comments and observations on that topic. It was published one year ago and says:
The Home Office will submit shortly to the Committee a memorandum giving a detailed report of the programme of work, mentioned in the Treasury Minute of October 1986 … which has been undertaken to improve the accountability and financial control of the Metropolitan Police and to review the information provided to Parliament.
We are still waiting. We are now in November 1989 and we still have not had from the Home Office the memorandum that we require on that important subject. I hope that Sir Brian's successor, Sir Clive Whitmore, will give some thought to that matter at an early date.
The court building programme is another splendid example of the need for value for money, efficiency and control of which Sir Brian Cubbon talks. The Committee said of the court building programme:
At the end of 1986, there still remained a backlog of 21,600 cases awaiting trial in England and Wales with waits between committal and trial as high as 25 weeks. These are matters of considerable concern to us, demonstrating how much more the departments need to do.
That is not a good example of value for money, efficiency or economy, and those are the things about which we need to be concerned. It is unacceptable to me—and, I am sure, to all hon. Members—that there are such long waits between trial and committal.
The report also covered the prison building programme, a matter to which I attach considerable importance. I am sure that I speak for most hon. Members when I say that none of us is proud of our prisons. I pay tribute to my right hon. and noble Friend Viscount Whitelaw who as Home Secretary took urgent steps to put that terrible problem right. [Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough (Sir M. Shaw) said, progress has been slow.
The report went on to say:
We are surprised that the Home Office no longer have a target date for matching total available places with the average prison population and we consider it important that a new target is set.
We are concerned that the recurring and apparently unforeseen surges cast serious doubt on the Home Office's ability to project accurately future prison populations.
That is a pretty tough comment on the efficiency of the Home Office.
The report also said:
By 1999 some 14,500 prison places, about one quarter of the total, will still be without access to night sanitation. We consider this to be unacceptable and urge the Home Office to find ways of bringing about a faster improvement in conditions.
In paragraph 26 of the report the Home Office makes the point that progress is being made towards dealing with the difficult problem of night sanitation. It is totally unacceptable in 1989 for men and women to be confined to prisons and for a large percentage of them still to be required to slop out, which means having no access to night sanitation and being obliged to use a bucket.
I hope that when my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary replies he will have something to say about what is being done to improve the efficiency of the prison service and to bring about the much-needed improvements in our Victorian prisons.
Another aspect of Home Office responsibility referred to in the report is a matter on which we had the privilege of listening to evidence from Sir Brian Cubbon while he was still in office. Paragraph 8 refers to
serious over-loading of the courts, 'intolerable' delays in bringing cases to trial.
We went on to say that
the Committee concluded that insufficient progress had been made towards meeting the objectives of the programme.
We also said:
Measures taken by the Lord Chancellor's Department to reduce the backlog of cases and waiting times in the Crown Court—especially in London and the South East—had produced no more than a marginal … improvement…Bearing in mind also the consequent deleterious effects of the huge backlog on overcrowding in local prisons and remand centres … recommended that the Lord Chancellor's Department and the Property Services Agency—bringing in the Home Office, as necessary—should take stock at the highest level of the programme's objectives, achievements and problems.


I am sure that when Sir Brian wrote the splendid article under the heading
Treat 'em mean: keep 'em keen
he was not referring to people slopping out in prisons or to those who have to wait for an intolerable time before their cases are heard. He may, however, have been referring to something that was mentioned in The Times the efficiency of his colleagues in the Home Office in dealing with those important matters which have caused us such great concern. We know that a crash programme has been initiated to provide a minimum of 12 temporary court rooms in London, but they will have a limited life expectancy and there is still a serious backlog.
I hope that when Home Office officials look at the report of today's debate and think about what we have said in the light of the comments of that distinguished public servant, Sir Brian Cubbon, there will be rapid progress towards dealing with those serious problems. They are not problems that can be left. They need to be dealt with now. It is unsatisfactory to have the system operating as it is with so many delays and so many people confined in appalling conditions.
In the article in the Municipal Journal Sir Brian was quoted as saying:
Police civilians have increased by 11 per cent. or more than 5,000 since 1985. Why is it that the number of police officers on patrol or operational duties has increased more slowly?
One of the reasons is that many police officers are today employed in investigating each other. One force is investigating another to find out what went wrong in a particular set of circumstances. As we all know, the West Midlands police force is being investigated by west Yorkshire and the Surrey force is being investigated by Somerset and Avon. I could go on but hon. Members on both sides of the House know about the problem. Many officers are deployed in dealing with investigations into complaints, some of which will turn out to be trivial. A great deal of public money is being spent. Some of these cases, of course, will turn out to be serious—I am not trying to cover that up—but it is important, when considering Sir Brian's strictures, to consider the alternative.
The Police Federation of England and Wales takes the view that there should be an independent police complaints authority with its own investigative branch, which could spend its time carrying out necessary investigations and leaving police officers in forces throughout the country to get on with the important job of policing. I hope that the PAC will turn to that matter when the time is right.
The forty-fourth report is on the quality of service to the public at DSS local offices. It is a particularly good report and it was welcomed by staff at social security offices throughout the country, who felt that a Committee of Parliament was at last taking an interest in the appalling conditions in which many of them have to work. Those conditions are especially acute not just in inner London but in parts of outer London.
I have discussed these matters with the staff at my local DSS office in Uxbridge and I know of their anxiety. Happily, the increased expenditure on improving offices in London and other parts of the country has greatly improved them and working conditions in them—but there is another problem.
In the borough of Hillingdon, in which my constituency lies, there is great competition for competent staff to do the jobs that officers in the DSS offices have to do. During the course of the evidence that the Committee took from the permanent secretary, Mr. France, I asked what consideration the Department was giving to the introduction of geographically related pay, and whether consideration had been given to the precedent set by the nurses' pay award, under which a supplement is payable over and above London weighting. Mr. France told the Committee that his Department, in common with other Departments, was introducing local pay additions for areas around London, amounting to £600. That is a welcome step in the right direction, but it is not a very large sum.
I asked Mr. France whether consideration could be given to geographically related pay throughout the country. He replied:
Geographical pay is gradually beginning to appear.
That is welcome and I hope that further progress will be made.
There is another problem. There is great competition in Uxbridge between the Department of Social Security and the London borough of Hillingdon for exactly the same sort of staff. Local authorities such as Hillingdon borough council can pay whatever they judge the appropriate rate for the job. Consequently, the DSS is battling to retain staff who are frequently siphoned off by local authorities. That also applies in many other parts of London and, for all I know, in other parts of the country.
Thus there are differing rates of pay in the DSS, which is an agency of national Government, and a London borough council, which is an agency of local government. That is making it difficult for DSS offices to retain local staff who have worked there for many years and who are experts in their field. They are tempted to go and work for the borough council. As £600 per year, welcome though it is, is not much these days, I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will give some thought to this.
Before I took part in this session of the PAC I made a number of inquiries among my friends in the Department of the Environment to discover whether overall strategic consideration was being given to the problem of the pull by local government away from the offices of a Department of State. No such consideration is being given, so the problem will persist unless something is done about it. I mention this matter on the Floor of the House because I hope that some thought will be given to it. It is not an easy matter to solve, but perhaps the PAC could deal with it at an appropriate time.
It is a privilege to take part in this debate and to have served on the PAC under our distinguished Chairman. I look forward to many more good reports. Like the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon), no doubt, I firmly believe that they are one of our best protections for ensuring value for money for the taxpayer.

Mr. Tim Smith: I start by endorsing what my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr, Shersby) has just said. I, too, regard it as a privilege to serve as a member of the Public Accounts Committee. It is one of the most effective Select Committees because it can draw on the services of 900 staff. Most Select Committees have perhaps two or three special advisers. We are fortunate because we rely so heavily on the staff of the


National Audit Office, who produce the reports on which our inquiries are based. Of course, those reports are not being investigated today, but they form the basis of our inquiries.
We are also fortunate to have the calibre of staff that the NAO employs. I know that it has plans not only to maintain but to improve the quality of its staff and to increase the number of value-for-money reports that it makes.
Although I have said that we are effective, perhaps we should have some independent assessment of our effectiveness; perhaps we could do a little more to blow our own trumpet. The Audit Commission is good at making regular pronouncements about the total value of the savings that it has recommended could be made if local government adopted its proposals. We could do more to quantify the savings that have been recommended by the PAC.
In this respect the Treasury should regard the Committee as an ally. We have a common objective; I am sure that my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary would agree that it is to improve value for money. I should like to make a proposal: my hon. Friend should try to see what can be done to improve the quality of Treasury minutes. Although I am sure that there is no deliberate attempt to obfuscate the issues, the way in which Treasury minutes are set out could be greatly improved. If the PAC first clearly tabulated what its recommendations were, the Treasury could then follow the practice of other Departments when replying to Select Committee reports. For instance, I have just read the Trade and Industry Select Committee report on financial services in the European market. Each recommendation is set out, followed by the Government response to it. That would be a useful way of proceeding. Will my hon. Friend consider that proposal?
I want to refer to four reports which form a representative sample that well illustrates the value of the different aspects of the Committee's work. The first is one to which hon. Members have already referred—the twenty-sixth report on coronary disease. It was an interesting report because it was the first time that the NAO had examined the output of the National Health Service, rather than the input. It had previously examined estate management and the way in which operating theatres are used, for example, but this report inquires into the objectives of the NHS. What is it in business for? The obvious answer is: to ensure that we all enjoy better health. What is one of the main killers in Britain? The answer is: coronary disease. How effective is Government policy in tackling it? Compared with some other countries it is not very good, and there is much room for improvement.
I referred earlier to the strikingly disproportionate amount spent on treating the problem as opposed to trying to prevent it. I shall not repeat the figures that I gave, but this needs examination. Curing heart disease is an expensive business, so we should devote more resources to trying to prevent it in the first place.
There is also a case for better ministerial co-ordination. When we asked questions about it in the Committee we were told that it was a matter for Ministers, so it seems right to mention it to my hon. Friend now. There are ministerial committees that deal with drugs and AIDS, so

there seems to be a strong case for a ministerial committee to deal with coronary disease, because trying to prevent it is clearly the responsibility of more than one Department—although the Department of Health has a major responsibility.
The example of tobacco taxation immediately demonstrates that the Treasury has a major responsibility. I know that when Treasury Ministers consider the Budget, many other considerations are regarded as more important than the nation's health. However, Treasury Ministers would surely agree that the price mechanism is the most efficient way of influencing people's behaviour. All the evidence shows that if we increase the price of cigarettes, we curb demand.

Mr. Roy Beggs: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Does he agree that, as the price of tobacco products has increased in the past, we have disadvantaged our own people because jobs have been lost in production in the United Kingdom and laid open the opportunity for cheap imports to this country without achieving a reduction in the use of tobacco products?

Mr. Smith: The hon. Gentleman puts the argument which has been put to me many times by the tobacco industry and of which I am well aware. There are always different considerations, but I have no doubt that price is an extremely effective way of influencing people's behaviour. The report shows that three principal factors determine whether people suffer coronary heart disease, and smoking is one of them. That is an important consideration.
The thirty-second report on the financial management of the Welsh Office is interesting. It is the first time that the National Audit Office has examined a whole Department. It looked at the financial management of the entire Department. The Welsh Office is a relatively small Department and spends only—perhaps I should not say only—£3,500 million and therefore it was possible to subject it to such scrutiny.
When the permanent secretary attended, I asked him whether he had a job description. He told me that he had not. I asked him how much of his time he spent on policy advice rather than managing the Department. He estimated that he spent more time managing the Department than on policy advice, which I thought was interesting. I asked him whether he regarded senior officials in the Department as a management board. There has been a change in Civil Service culture during the past few years as a result of financial management initiatives and other initiatives taken by the Government. There are more officials in Government who see themselves as managers. I am still clear that giving good quality advice to Ministers is probably seen as the priority.
Another factor in this context is the lack of accountants working in line management positions in Government. One might think that financial controllers in Government would be accountants; they are not. Such is the generalist philosophy and culture of the Civil Service that accountants are thought of as people to be put at the end of the corridor and consulted on financial matters. They are not placed in positions with a degree of financial responsibility. There are very few accountants working in line management positions. The other day I was talking to an internal auditor from the DTI who told me that there were as few as 300 throughout central Government.

Dr. Godman: Given the Committee's practice of comparing different Departments, does the hon. Gentleman agree that, in the absence of a Scottish Affairs Select Committee, this Committee could perform a useful, nay, a valuable, function in examining some aspects of the financial management of the Scottish Office?

Mr. Smith: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman appreciates that we regularly look at matters relating to Scotland. We recently looked at the operation of the procurators fiscal and aspects of the Health Service in Scotland. If the hon. Gentleman is saying that we should look at the overall financial management of the Scottish Office, that is an interesting idea that we might well put to the National Audit Office.
The third report to which I shall refer is the ninth report on the Overseas Development Administration and multilateral aid. I do so because the Committee has not always criticised every Government Department. In this case, we gave the ODA good marks for what it was doing. Our general conclusion in paragraph 18 was:
we saw the C &amp; AG's Report as providing Parliament with assurance that the Overseas Development Administration have adopted a generally sound approach to monitoring and controlling the Multilateral Aid Programme.
We had some reservations, as we always have. It is our job to criticise and we always look for the weak points. But when a Department is well run, and managing itself in a satisfactory way, it is important to say so and in that case we did.
The forty-sixth report in the last Session, 1987–88, on the management of the family practitioner services is one of many reports on the National Health Service produced by the Committee. Obviously, we made detailed proposals for improving the management of family practitioner committees and have made many other detailed proposals in other reports on the NHS. Many of our recommendations have found their way into the Government's White Paper, the NHS review. That may come as a surprise to some people who apparently think that the White Paper is designed to undermine the National Health Service. However, its simple objective is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness with which the taxpayer's money is spent in the Health Service.
In the Public Accounts Committee, we see examples almost every month of where savings could be made and more money devoted to improved patient care. I am pleased that many of the Committee's proposals have found their way into the White Paper and are being, or will be, implemented when the National Health Service and Community Care Bill is enacted. That is an important point.
I congratulate the Committee's Chairman, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon), on his work. His is a most onerous task which he has carried out with great distinction.

Mr. Nicholas Brown: I identify myself and the Opposition with the remarks of the hon. Member for Scarborough (Sir M. Shaw), who congratulated my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) on the way in which he chaired the Public Accounts Committee during the past year. My right hon. Friend does an enormous amount of hard work, and I know that he commands the respect of the rest of the Committee and the House. I thank him and

the other members of the Public Accounts Committee for the work that they do and for the bipartisan spirit in which they do it. It is important to the authority which the reports carry when they come before the House that they are produced in a bipartisan spirit and reflect a consensus among the Committee members. That unanimity gives them enormous authority. The House takes the Committee's views seriously.
Therefore, it is all the more damning that the substantial losses to the Exchequer which have been identified in some of the reports relate not to failures in public administration, but to losses sustained as a direct result of the Government's ideological commitment. The bill for dogma is now being presented to the nation. In some of the reports the Public Accounts Committee has identified a separate matter: where public expenditure has been foolishly forgone, resulting in long-term inefficiencies and losses to the Exchequer. I shall deal first with this issue before referring to the reports which identify losses to the Exchequer due to political decision making rather than administrative inefficiencies.
When the House debated public expenditure in February, we found a new word for public expenditure foolishly forgone. We introduced to the English language "Lamontable" and the concept of Lamontable spending decisions. Of the Lamontables now under consideration, the twenty-sixth PAC report on coronary heart disease makes important reading, and it has been referred to by several hon. Members. It is not the first time that the PAC has considered the issue, but it still feels that it is necessary to express its concern at the failure of the Department of Health to evaluate the full potential of spending on prevention to save on treatment costs.
As the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith) said" factors such as heredity and age are unavoidable. None the less, the Committee draws attention to the three principal risk factors, which are smoking, blood pressure and cholesterol levels. These factors are all avoidable, and the Department must do more than admit that more needs to be done in heart disease prevention. The Committee highlights the obvious point that more resources devoted to prevention would result in long-term savings for the Department and to better lifestyles for many of our citizens.
Several hon. Members have referred to the administration of national museums, galleries and collections. The Committee noted that the Treasury expressed the view that there was scope within the arts budget to meet urgent priorities, but the museum service claims that it is seriously under-funded to meet its needs. The result is an inability of the service properly to account for the care and maintenance of, in some instances, priceless collections that are in its charge. The Committee noted the lack of reliable quantified information on the extent of the problems faced by the service and the resource consequences of that. It is an issue to which the Committee will no doubt have to return when better information is available.
It is right that the House should assert now that it is in the national interest that these matters are brought to a satisfactory conclusion before the poor storage conditions and the backlog of conservation to which the Committee refers in the case of some national collections reach their logical conclusion and important collections are irretrievably damaged or lost to the nation for ever. I was as horrified as the Chairman of the PAC, my right hon.


Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne, when the Victoria and Albert museum stated that it was running the risk of irreparable damage to some parts of the national heritage. I am sure that the House considers that to be unacceptable. If it is the consequence of public expenditure foolishly forgone, it is Lamontable that we must pay the price for it.
Exactly the same point is made by the PAC, although in a different context, in its twenty-eighth report on road maintenance. Several hon. Members, especially those with constituency interests, spoke on the issue with considerable feeling. The Department of Transport is criticised for continuing uncertainty, for failing to budget, for having an irregular maintenance programme and for taking money from that programme to be used in the new-build programme instead. The report highlights the long-term public expenditure consequences of neglecting maintenance and refers to the Department's estimates of the long-term cost of a decision to defer the spending of about £28 million in 1988–89. It is estimated that this decision could lead to on-costs of about £60 million to £120 million over the next three to four years.
The Committee rightly doubts whether the benefits lost by postponing part of the maintenance programme will ever be recovered by spending the money on new build instead. It considers this to be a striking example of short-sightedness in saving now but spending later. This is an example of public expenditure foolishly forgone, and the decision will cost the taxpayer more in the long run. It is another Lamontable decision. The report was published at the end of June and the Committee was able to take note of the new spending commitments which were announced in April-May for the Department of Transport.
The announcement was heralded by a speech delivered by the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury. There were those who suggested cynically that that was because the Chief Secretary expected to be moved to the Department of Transport in the forthcoming Government reshuffle. I consider that to be an unworthy and cynical view. It was always my opinion that the then Chief Secretary was destined for higher things. Now that he has moved up a rung, as it were, the previous Financial Secretary has moved to fill his job and the previous Economic Secretary is now the Financial Secretary. It is surely an appropriate moment for me to welcome the Financial Secretary to his new job and to say that I look forward to winding up these debates with him for the rest of the Parliament, and in the same spirit that I did with his Lamontable predecessor.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Peter Lilley): The hon. Gentleman will have to find a new pun now.

Mr. Brown: My other pun, as fans of our consideration of Finance Bills will know, is to refer to brief gaps in our consideration of them as lacunas. He who was the Economic Secretary is now the Lilley of lacuna. Perhaps that will not fit into the spirit of the debate, and that may explain why the Opposition seem unable to retain Members to serve on Finance Bill Committees.
It would not be a PAC debate without mention of the Ministry of Defence. The three recurring themes in these debates are the misdeeds of the Northern Ireland Office, the misdeeds of the Ministry of Defence, and the

Government's lack of enthusiasm to clamp down on a wide range of serious fraud. This year the Ministry of Defence, even by its own standards, has managed to secure a substantial amount of the Committee's fully justified attention. No fewer than 10 of its reports refer to matters that concern the Ministry.
The thirty-first report deals with the reliability and maintenance of defence equipment. It builds on the consideration that the Committee gave to the issue way back in 1979. In that year, it was noted that an improvement in the reliability and maintenance of defence equipment was potentially the most cost-effective measure directly open to the Ministry in that sector. The PAC was therefore right—it was a reasonable thing for it to do—to return to the matter about 10 years on to ascertain what progress had been made. According to the Committee, there had not been very much progress.
The Ministry accepts that unreliability probably costs as much as £1 billion a year. It considers 50 per cent. to be a fair goal for justifiable savings. As Sir Peter Levene rightly said, reliability costs money but that the more we spend on it the more we shall save. It is fair to observe, as the Committee does, that not much of a start seems to have been made 10 years on. The PAC drily observes that it looks to the Ministry to make early progress. This is another example of public expenditure forgone leading to greater cost to the taxpayer in the long term.
If the Ministry ever begins to take notice of the PAC's reports or of these debates, I hope that it will consider these matters and make a start to improve the quality of the type 23 frigate programme. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne has said that there are only 30 reliability and maintenance specialists in the Ministry. As the report states, however, the Ministry has a procurement budget of about £9 billion.
The Ministry of Defence provides a good example of the Committee's work in the second of the two areas to which I referred at the beginning of my speech, and that is the loss of moneys to the Exchequer as a result of Government dogma, not maladministration.
It would be amazing if this debate were to reach a conclusion without reference to the Committee's forty-eighth report on the sale of Royal Ordnance plc. The Committee rightly makes the point that, prior to the sale of Royal Ordnance, the MOD did not explore the possibility of redevelopment at Waltham Abbey or Enfield and nor did it obtain alternative valuations of those sites on the assumption that redevelopment might be approved in future. The Government sold Royal Ordnance, including all its sites, in April 1987. It was bought by British Aerospace for £190 million. The Waltham Abbey and Enfield sites were bought for £3·5 million, but a subsequent valuation by the City firm of Warburg suggested that the sites could be worth up to £462 million when they had been redeveloped for industry and housing.
The PAC said:
We note that BAe could make a substantial gain on their sale or development without benefits accruing to the taxpayer beyond the sale price paid by BAe.
Of course, British Aerospace has also purchased the Rover Group. It is not the first PAC report to bring privatisation issues to our attention. Hon. Members who recall last year's debate will remember the unhappy report on the Rolls-Royce privatisation. They will also remember the last-minute debt write-offs and the pressure from the management of Rolls-Royce just before it was due to go


into the private sector. There is no doubt that next year we shall again consider a PAC report on the Rover Group, which will inevitably make similar points.
Substantial sums of public money have been unnecessarily given away to pursue the Government's ideological commitment to privatisation and with no consideration of the public purse or even of issues of common sense. If it had happened just once, it could be understood, but to have a debate on this matter last year, this year and probably again next year shows substantial Government contempt for the public purse.

Mr. Shersby: I do not wish to be controversial, but surely it is necessary to balance the decision on the Rover Group with the substantial sums of taxpayers' money that have been used to shore up the Rover Group for many years. I think that the figure is about £3·5 billion. Without being controversial, I wish to point out that that is also a substantial sum of money and that many taxpayers were heartily sick of it.

Mr. Brown: I am content to await the eventual PAC report on these matters. No doubt we will return to them next year. My understanding is that those taxpayers were about to realise a return on their investment in Rover. Perhaps the PAC will say that, perhaps it will not, but one thing is certain—that the PAC cannot avoid the issue of the potential speculative gain on the land owned by Rover and by Royal Ordnance. That point was emphasised in the report on Royal Ordnance, and I expect that it will be emphasised again in the report on Rover. I may be wrong, and I do not wish to prejudge the issue, but that is what I expect. Whatever one's political view of privatisation, and I am opposed to it, it is possible to carry out a privatisation programme and preserve the legitimate interests of the taxpayer on land sales—land set at a certain value, but which also has a substantially increased and enhanced speculative value. I wish that the Government had taken that point on board before transferring substantial assets to the private sector.
Again, it would not be a PAC debate without some mention of unacceptable levels of fraud and the Government's failure to deal with them. Their reluctance to take firm action across a whole range of areas was a major feature of last year's debate. This year, the Committee is concerned at the level of fraud on the second regional development grants scheme. It regards it as a unacceptable that the majority of cases to date have not been detected by officers of the Department of Trade and Industry. The Committee makes the important recommendation that there should be independent accountants' reports on the number of jobs created as a simple, effective and straightforward safeguard against fraud.
It seems appropriate to move on from independent accountants' reports and independent monitoring to the report on the urban development corporations. Systematic monitoring of performance is recommended for the urban development corporations, and the implementation of that recommendation is long overdue. The Committee has so far looked only at the London Docklands and the Merseyside development corporations, but it will at some stage have to turn its attention to other more recent urban development corporations. There is no evidence that the Department of the Environment is making any serious

effort to control or restrain those undemocratic and unaccountable institutions which are spending significant sums of public money.
In its twentieth report on the London Docklands and Merseyside development corporations the Committee identified four issues—first, again, the lack of control over land valuations and sales; secondly, the misuse of consultants, a matter that my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) raised in last year's debate; thirdly, the failure to protect the public purse in profit-sharing arrangements; and, fourthly, and most significantly, poor management. I strongly suspect that variations on those four items would be discovered if scrutiny were extended to the other urban development corporations. I hope that at an appropriate time the Public Accounts Committee will undertake that task.
In trying to do justice to the Committee's reports I have drawn two themes from them—public expenditure foolishly forgone, the failure to spend 1p now costing £1 later; and the losses that have been suffered by the Exchequer as a result of political decision making rather than maladministration, most noticeably through the Government's privatisation programme. I hope that at some stage the Public Accounts Committee will be able to take an overview of the cost-effectiveness of the Government's privatisation programme. Then the point made by the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) could be weighed against the fears, some of them confirmed, some yet to be confirmed, of Opposition Members.
The Public Accounts Committee published two reports on the services offered by the Department of Social Security. In its forty-fourth report the Committee considers the quality of service to the public in what were then local Department of Health and Social Security offices. After making a number of points about the organisation of local offices, manpower levels, high staff turnover and the direct relationship between dissatisfaction with facilities and expenditure on local offices, the Committee expressed its concern about the image of the social security system and the narrow interpretation of the DSS of its responsibility for advising and encouraging claimants. The Committee returned to some of those matters in its thirtieth report, noting an estimated level of incorrect payments of between £34 million and £89 million, stating that that was clearly unacceptable. The Committee expressed concern at the number of errors in the social fund account and the frank admission that what was disclosed was unsatisfactory and unacceptable.
My hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) was right to raise the question of claimants suffering from the industrial disease vibration white finger. That does not affect all areas equally; it is confined to constituencies where heavy industry dominates, particularly heavy engineering and shipbuilding, but that industrial illness and the way in which the Department of Social Security is dealing with it deeply concern those communities that are affected.
My hon. Friend referred to a figure of 20,000 claims submitted in Sunderland alone. They will not all be substantial but a great number of them will be. I am reminded of the deluge of industrial deafness claims that occurred when I was an official of the General Municipal Boilmakers and Allied Trades Union before I was elected to this House. At the peak of those submissions, the union's solicitors had an office with filing cabinets all


around the walls labelled from A to Z, and each file was visited once every three months. Ultimately there were about 4,000 successful claims in the Newcastle area alone. That is a prime example of people suffering industrial injury as a consequence of the community in which they live and of a traditional form of employment in that community. Vibration white finger is a similar issue, and my hon. Friend was right to raise it in the context of the report.
The Public Accounts Committee made the point that the Department is taking steps to improve the service provided by local offices and intends to increase its targets year by year. However, the PAC comments also that the Department's services are provided to 23 million callers each year and that, in the main, they are citizens who are least able to turn to any other form of advice and who rely on the state to treat them fairly. It is important that the state treats those citizens fairly and does not send them somewhere else for the information that should be provided by a Government Department. The reports also present some stark contrasts in providing an overview of what is happening in this country. They tell of the transfer of public assets from public control to wealthy, private companies and of the generous arrangements made to facilitate such transfers. Other PAC reports tell of the neglect of public services, inadequate funding of the arts, lack of road maintenance, and failure to spend money also on preventive medicine. Two of the reports reveal the mean and squalid treatment received by the least well off in our society in respect of services delivered by the DSS. The Public Accounts Committee presents a snapshot and an indictment of Tory Britain.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Peter Lilley): This is the first occasion that I have had the privilege to reply to a debate on the work of the Public Accounts Committee. In preparing for it, I came to realise what a daunting responsibility it is—not only because of the enormous volume of reports involved but because of their scope, range, quality and value. I join with other hon. Members in paying tribute to the Committee's Chairman, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon), who brings to it both his personal authority and considerable experience, which enhances the work of what probably has always been the most powerful and important Committee in this House.
It is not just officers in the public service but Ministers who take seriously the views of the Committee and of its Chairman—and not just what it says but what it might say. The hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) made a valid point when he remarked that the Committee could refer only to things that had happened, but it also casts its shadow ahead of it and makes everyone very aware of, and more cautious about, their own actions. I pay tribute also to the Comptroller and Auditor General, as well as to the staff of the National Audit Office, for their excellent work in preparing the reports.
The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), with whom I am often in agreement on constitutional matters, was wrong to suggest that the Committee's practice of reaching unanimous agreement is detrimental and open to criticism. Whatever our views on the precise role and scope

of the public sector, we can surely all agree that it should carry out that role by providing value for money and maintaining the highest standards of integrity in the way in which that money is spent. Through its reports, the Committee does a great deal to achieve that aim.
Inevitably, I cannot respond to all the many points that have been made—which themselves are but the tip of an iceberg whose bulk, in the form of the reports themselves, lies below the Dispatch Box. Let me deal first with the report on the quality of service provided in DSS offices.
It is, I agree, very important for clients of the social services, who are often among the most needy and vulnerable members of society, to receive the best, most rapid and most courteous service that we can reasonably provide. The social security reforms that we introduced some years ago have made the system easier for clients to understand and simpler for the authorities to administer, and that is already showing in the improved clearance times for—among others—income support claimants. In 1987–88, they had to wait for an average of 6·3 days for their claims to be cleared; last year, they had to wait for an average of 4·9 days. The time that they spend in the office —including waiting time—has been reduced in that period from 26 minutes to just under 20.
Hon. Members have expressed doubts about the DSS's survey figures as compared with those provided by Gallup's survey. Let me point out, particularly to the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne, that the Gallup report was retrospective—it asked people to think back to their visits—whereas the DSS figures are collected at the time of the visits. Early in the new year, however, the DSS is to carry out the first external and independent poll of customers' opinions, which will be made available to the House and which will, I believe, be of value.
I may respond in more detail to the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) in writing, although his contribution was most welcome. Let me tell him now, however, that the new complementing system will take effect in April 1990. It will be performance-based —that is, it will make staffing levels fit agreed performance levels in each office. The Government do not accept that staffing levels are wrong, but we hope in time to improve the precise allocation and complement of staff.

Dr. Godman: I am obliged to the Minister. May I point out, however, that considerable anxiety is felt by many of my constituents who have made claims in respect of white finger disease? Their fear centres on the likelihood of the Treasury forcing the DSS to close down the take-up campaign by bringing forward a closure date for such claims. Will the Minister give me an assurance that that anxiety is misplaced, and that the Treasury would do no such dreadful thing?

Mr. Lilley: The Treasury never does dreadful things. I will, however, give the hon. Gentleman an assurance that I will look into the matter and write to him—and, if he wishes, that response can be made public. I am grateful to him for raising an issue that is plainly important both to many of his constituents and, more widely, to the industries affected.
The next report refers to the sale of the royal ordnance factories. We are satisfied that the arrangements for the sale of Royal Ordnance were designed to ensure that the competition was as wide-ranging as possible and open to bidders. Care was taken to ensure that the pressure on the


bidders was maintained until the final decision. We are confident that the price received for Royal Ordnance—£190 million—was a true reflection of its market value. It was twice the value that we were advised could have been obtained the previous year.
The media claims about the site values of the two main sites that have been mentioned in the debate have been demonstrated to be enormously exaggerated. The professional valuations were in the range of £25 million to £37·5 million—only 8 per cent. of the figure extensively quoted in the media. Quite clearly it was a mistaken report.

Mr. Nicholas Brown: It was produced by independent analysts.

Mr. Lilley: It was produced by an analyst and as I used to be one I know how unreliable analysts' reports can be. The valuation report was reasonably reliable.
The right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne mentioned the importance of valuing sites on an alternative-use basis. Valuations of the two sites were made on an alternative-use basis, but they were found to be lower than those made on a current-use basis and for that reason they were not made public. However, they demonstrated that the current-use valuations were the highest and the most relevant.
The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned the possibility of selling off in tranches. That is obviously much easier to do in respect of a public company than in the case of a private treaty sale, but occasionally we have sold off public companies in tranches as in the case of Cable and Wireless.
The right hon. Gentleman and a number of others, including my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough (Sir M. Shaw), expressed concern about the report on museums and galleries. I am not sure whether the report fully recognised that the Committee's concerns are already being addressed.
Improved corporate planning is being required of all the main museums and galleries. In 1987 we introduced three-year planning which makes it easier for them to plan ahead. In 1988 we announced a major increase in grant-in-aid for building and maintenance work, and the funding emphasis on conservation, storage and documentation has been enhanced. The total provision for museums and galleries has risen from £158 million in 1988–89 to £182 million in 1990–91—a 15 per cent. increase —and will reach £200 million in 1992–93—a 27 per cent. increase. That will provide a considerable increase in resources available to museums and galleries to carry out the work which the Committee rightly recognised is so important.
I must tell my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough that record-keeping will be an important aspect of corporate planning required of museums and galleries and I understand that many museums are using computerised records which will give them a much better ability to identify what they have in their collections.
The report mentioned by the greatest number of right hon. and hon. Members was that dealing with coronary heart disease. The right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne and my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Page) were disappointed in the fall in the United Kingdom rate of coronary heart disease. I understand that the fall has been greatest in countries where the level of disease initially was the highest. It is not

as high in the United Kingdom as in a number of other countries. It has declined here, particularly among younger groups, among which it fell 30 per cent. between 1970 and 1985. Those younger groups seem to be maintaining a more healthy lifestyle as they move into the older age groups, along with me.
My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Smith) and other hon. Members emphasised what they saw as the disproportion between expenditure on prevention and on treatment. It would not be sensible to expect the numbers to bear any mechanical or arithmetical relationship. We recognise the importance of prevention, and in England we are introducing the "Look After Your Heart" campaign, which I understand is the first multifaceted campaign in the world directed at coronary heart disease. It recognises the many aspects that render people liable to the disease. Quite considerable sums are being spent, not only from the public purse but by private companies, which are being encouraged to participate in the campaign.
My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield mentioned the importance of tobacco taxes. They are a crucial way of discouraging smoking, which is a major cause of heart disease. In my previous capacity—Lilley of lacuna—I was the guilty man responsible for not raising tobacco taxes as much as my hon. Friend and other hon. Members would wish. I assure the House that the Treasury discusses this issue closely with the Department of Health and takes health considerations into account. It is in part because of that, and apart from our insatiable desire for money, that we have such a high tax on tobacco. As I recall, it has increased in real terms by about 40 per cent. since 1979. The main decline in the use of tobacco over the years resulted from cultural changes, undoubtedly helped by the rise in tobacco tax.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West mentioned the importance of defibrillators and training for ambulance personnel. The voluntary extended training of ambulance staff is new; 1988–89 was the first full year of the National Health Service training authority's package. It is not therefore surprising that some doctors and consultants find it difficult to accept that a sea change is taking place and that ambulance staff are now capable of being trained for, and able to supply, advanced resuscitation and life-saving skills. The Department of Health is convinced that paramedic training and practice will form an increasingly important element within the accident and emergency ambulance service, which is why the proposal for increased salary to paramedics was made. We are taking action on that front.

Mr. Page: I appreciate the advances that are being made, but does not my hon. Friend find it frightening that only last year we began to get our act together on this vital matter? The spread of best practice and the introduction of defibrillators should have been done by the National Health Service through the Department of Health years ago, not last year. Does my hon. Friend share my concern?

Mr. Lilley: I understand my hon. Friend's concern, but many of those better qualified than he or I believed until quite recently that it was not desirable for treatment to be carried out by ambulance personnel. Who are we to ignore medical advice? My hon. Friend's attitude is much more in tune with the majority of the medical profession than it was in the past.
The other medical report that we debated was on the use of operating theatres in the National Health Service. I agree with the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne that it is a matter of concern that such important pieces of plant and equipment are not fully utilised. He said that only half the available theatre time was fully employed. That is significant. The report gives a figure of 20 per cent. spare capacity. That demonstrates that there is scope for improving value for money in the Health Service. I noted a comment in the report that:
Traditional practices and habits, framed for the convenience of consultants and staff, must be revised as necessary".
That is in line with the Government's attitude and probably with the attitude of the whole House. Indeed, it is part of the philosophy of our planned National Health Service reforms, although they will not necessarily have universal support.
The NHS reforms wil help make better use of operating theatres within the NHS by making two changes. First, contractual arrangements for health care will become more widespread. Hospitals will have a direct incentive to use their facilities efficiently, attract patients and use theatres more fully because cash will follow the patient. That is a vital and important reform of the NHS which will encourage greater efficiency. The other change will be in capital accounting. Until now, there has been no proper capital accounting in the NHS so it is not surprising that proper use is not always made of the large amount of capital resources in the NHS.
I now come to the report on the highway maintenance backlogs, which was mentioned by several right hon. and hon. Members. The right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne who is Chairman of the PAC said that roads were not built to last long enough and that the Department of Transport would prefer to press on with building roads rather than fill gaps in knowledge about road design. The United Kingdom is a leader in road design backed by major research programmes. Over the years, national roads have usually performed better than expected by carrying more traffic than they were designed for before having to be rebuilt. Designs were substantially upgraded in 1985 and roads are now being built to last 40 years before they need to be rebuilt.
Over £670 million was spent on the capital maintenance of national roads and bridges over the past three years. That is a 220 per cent. increase in real terms over the 1978–79 budget.
The Autumn Statement prepared by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury showed that we would spend £1·3 billion on capital maintenance on roads over the next three years which is a further real increase of 40 per cent. Planned spending over the next three years should be enough to eliminate backlogs of road maintenance as currently estimated. That will be welcomed by members of the Committee, both in their capacity as guardians of the public purse and as frequent users of the motorways.
The next report is on the reliability and maintainability of defence equipment. The Ministry of Defence is in full accord with the Public Accounts Committee's recommendations about improved procurement procedures. A director of reliability was appointed in July 1989. The Ministry is reviewing the future requirement for reliability

and maintenance specialists both within the directorate of reliability and in the service departments and other parts of the procurement executive to support that increased emphasis. The services defect reporting systems are being reviewed to see how they can be adapted to provide information for statistical analysis to support the plans for improvement. Greater attention will be paid to life cycle costs at all stages of projects and the new emphasis has been widely publicised within the services. The Ministry of Defence and the industry are being made aware of it by meetings, seminars and video presentations, all of which have attracted considerable interest.
The right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne commented on the report on urban development corporations. The report was a little out of date when it was published because it was overtaken by other developments. Many of the suggestions for tighter control and monitoring have been implemented since the Comptroller and Auditor General's report was published. The new urban development corporations have been set up, taking into account his criticisms of earlier guidance, and a comprehensive guidebook has been issued to all UDCs together with a revised financial memorandum.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West made several points about the road planning report. The Department of Transport has studied the PAC report carefully. It is not complacent about traffic forecasting methods and there is no evidence that the methods are fundamentally flawed. It has a system of checking forecasts against actual traffic, as the Committee recommended. Of the 41 road schemes cited, 60 per cent. had forecasts with an accuracy within plus or minus 20 per cent.—that is within the level of accuracy determined by the technique. Those checks show that there is no systematic bias. Forecasting errors at the extreme of minus 50 per cent. up to 105 per cent. were quoted. They were largely due to planned changes in land use not taking place. Traffic forecasting is inherently uncertain. The methods have been and will continue to be improved. The new national road traffic forecast provides a more up-to-date basis for appraising road schemes. I am pleased to note that my hon. Friend was encouraged by the Treasury response to the report and by the White Paper "Roads for Prosperity".
My hon. Friend mentioned his anxiety about the environment associated with the future widening of the M25. The consultants' report has been published and the standing advisory committee on trunk road assessment has been expanded and asked to examine the evaluation of environmental effects.
The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) apologised to the House for leaving early and we are grateful for that apology. We welcome his speech. He is an hon. Member for whom I have great respect when he is not muck-raking. He commented on information in reports to Parliament, particularly about the secret services and GCHQ. The House has long accepted that it is not in the public interest to reveal details of the security and intelligence services, but the NAO has full access to expenditure on GCHQ. Given the nature of the expenditure on the secret vote, there are long-standing conventions that Parliament has accepted that there should not be detailed external examination of that expenditure, but obviously the PAC can examine it in private session.
My hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough raised an important point about the public sector borrowing requirement and its arcane definition. I can well understand that he may be puzzled by it. It has perplexed me in the past. It is a complicated matter, but there is logic behind the definition. As he said, if a subsidiary of the Commonwealth development corporation borrows abroad to lend abroad, it does not count against the PSBR for the good reason that it has no impact on the British economy. Borrowing by British Nuclear Fuels plc does not count against the PSBR because it is a Companies Act company borrowing on the ordinary markets. The Government's guarantee of that borrowing does not involve any expenditure unless the guarantee is called, in which case any Government payment would count as public expenditure.

Sir Michael Shaw: Government agencies or local government could often adopt the same policies as those of British Nuclear Fuels. The arguments are more or less the same. That would allow it to compete in the open market for genuine, commercial objectives that are necessary. I cannot help but feel that from time to time the Government use the PSBR definition to stop developments. Certainly the variations due to Government changes in policy on PSBR make continuous planning in some areas uncertain.

Mr. Lilley: I understand what my hon. Friend says. What is surely not in doubt is that the Government must exercise control over public sector borrowing. I can understand the difficulties of comprehension to which companies such as BNFL give rise. Plainly, the solution to all our problems of definition is to privatise as much as possible and have a much smaller public sector to which the definition will apply.
My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) spoke in telling terms of his concern about prisons and law and order and I recognise the importance of the matters that he raised. The Treasury minute responds to some of them, notably on prison building where the programme is on target to yield an additional

7,000 places at new establishments by March 1993 and a further 2,500 new places at existing establishments somewhat earlier, in March 1991. In addition, there is a new programme of integral sanitation which should provide 6,500 cells with access to it within the next seven years. Ways of expanding that programme are being considered. However, I will draw to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary the matters that my hon. Friend has raised and I am sure that he will be influenced by them. If my hon. Friend permits, I shall write to him about some of the more detailed aspects that he drew to the attention of the House.
My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield appealed for a change in the format of the Treasury minutes. The Treasury is happy to redraft the form of those minutes in order to meet the wishes of the Committee and I hope that the next minute, which will be presented to the House early in the new year, will be in a form that better meets my hon. Friend's wishes and those of the Committee as a whole.
On that happy note I shall end my contribution to the debate. I renew the debt of gratitude that the whole House owes to the members of the Committee and to hon. Members who have taken part in this interesting debate.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House takes note of the 37th to 40th and 42nd to 52nd Reports of the Committee of Public Accounts of Session 1987–88, of the 1st to 33rd Reports of Session 1988–89 and of the Treasury Minutes and Northern Ireland Department of Finance and Personnel Memorandum on those Reports (Cm. 533, 563, 624, 648, 697, 717, 747, 831 and 850), with particular reference to the following Reports:—
1987–88:
Forty-fourth, Quality of service to the public at DHSS local offices;
Forty-eighth, Sale of Royal Ordnance plc.
1988–89:
First, Management of the collections of the English national museums and galleries;
Twenty-sixth, Coronary heart disease;
Twenty-eighth, Backlog of maintenance of motorways and trunk roads;
Thirty-first, Reliability and maintainability of defence equipment.

PETITIONS

Deaf Television Viewers

Mr. Greville Janner: I am pleased to present a petition to the House signed by more than 1,200 of my constituents and other citizens of the city of Leicester on behalf of deaf television viewers. The petition draws attention to the fact that broadcasters are not providing complete access for deaf television viewers, for example, with subtitles or sign language. It states that at least 4 million viewers are affected and that deaf viewers, as equal members of the general public, are entitled to equal access to television programmes.
The prayer calls upon the Government and the House to ensure that legislation is
passed placing an obligation on television channel operators to make their programmes more accessible to deaf people by using Teletext subtitles, sign language or other means, and to reach complete coverage by a fixed date.
May we please help deaf people to understand the debates in this House when they are shown on television?
It is a pleasure to present the petition.

To lie upon the Table.

Mr. Malcolm Bruce: Like the hon. and learned Member for Leicester, West (Mr. Janner), I have pleasure in presenting a petition on behalf of deaf people in and around my constituency, including my daughter, who is profoundly deaf.
The petitioners are strongly of the view that the arrangements for televising the House do not provide complete access for deaf television viewers, specifically by the use of sign language and the provision of subtitles. They point out that some 4 million people in the United Kingdom are affected by deafness, and that they are as entitled to equal access to television broadcasting of Parliament as other members of the community. If they are to participate in the democratic and political process, it is essential that they are provided with that support.
The petitioners therefore pray
that your Honourable House will ensure that legislation be passed placing an obligation on television channel operators to make their programmes more accessible to deaf people by using Teletext subtitles, sign language or other means, and to reach complete coverage by a fixed date.
I have pleasure in presenting this petition, which I wholly support.

To lie upon the Table.

Rural Schools (Humberside)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Chapman.]

Mr. David Davis: I am grateful to Mr. Speaker for selecting my subject for the Adjournment debate. Rural schools in Humberside face specific problems. I will come to the details in a moment, but I suspect that those problems are replicated in many counties with large rural areas and a majority urban population.
In recent years, much of Government policy has focused on the problems of the inner cities, recognising the specific problems there and attempting to do something about them. On the obverse side, there is a general belief that life is healthier in rural areas and that people in small towns and villages have a better quality of life than people in cities. They have less unemployment, less crime and fewer social problems. In my view, rural life is better than urban life, and I think that it should be made available to as many people as possible.
The quality of rural life is reflected in the schools, which have fewer behavioural problems, more parental involvement and a more positive attitude among the children. Accordingly educational attainment levels in rural schools are as good as—and sometimes better than —those in big urban schools. All those are virtues to be cherished. The thrust of my argument is that in Humberside all those virtues are at risk due to a policy of neglect.
Humberside has a large rural area, dominated by three major cities—Hull, Grimsby and Scunthorpe. My constituency of Boothferry is a predominantly rural area in the west of the county, furthest from Hull and Grimsby.
We all know how the mechanism for county councils obtaining money from central Government works—in practice if not in theory. On an annual basis, a typical county council makes a bid, which is almost always for more than the amount that it could reasonably expect to spend, because of the way the system works. It justifies the bid in the best way that it can and the Government agree to meet a proportion of the bid. In the past 50 years the average proportion nationwide has hovered at around 40 per cent. In other words, the Government have paid a typical council an average of 40 per cent. of its bid. Humberside has done much better than that. Although the bids have been large, the Government have allowed more than 60 per cent. of the bid submitted—almost half as much again as the national average. The Government have been generous to Humberside, and that generosity has allowed Humberside to spend £44 million to £45 million in capital on educational establishments.
More than £22 million of that money, however, has been spent on the Hull reorganisation alone. When it is finished, that reorganisation will have cost £23·6 million —50 per cent. more than the original bid. That massive overrun must be put down either to poor planning or to poor control—in other words, to poor management. There is considerable evidence that Humberside is not well blessed with good management in that respect. For example, the Audit Commission study of the provision of school meals in Humberside led to a number of salient


criticisms about the way it was managed and identified management weaknesses accounting for some £2 million per year in excess costs.
In the reorganisation, the local authority did not send teachers to the schools that they ought to have attended, but left them for a considerable time in places where they were no longer needed. The local authority then offered an early retirement package so generous and so loosely managed that, instead of the 178 people that it needed to retire, 372 left. The county thus had to pay out for all those extra ones and then employ 200 new ones. That cost at least £4 million, which does not take account of the effect of the loss of a great number of experienced staff.
Such sloppy management is bad news for the ratepayer and the taxpayer, but the capital overrun is even worse news for my constituents in rural areas. For one school after another completion has been deferred, expansion has been put back and replacement has been denied. Many schools in my constituency are now overdue for capital expenditure. The most outstanding—there are many more are the schools at Howden, Walkington and Rawcliffe. So as not to take too much time, I shall take just one as an illustration—the Howden infants school.
Plans for a completely new infants' school were drawn up in the 1960s, and it was opened in 1971. At that time, the school operated on a split site—the new site, called Hailgate, and the old site, called Pinfold. As a temporary measure, in 1981, the children were moved from the Pinfold site to the Hailgate site and the Pinfold site was sold. The money from the sale went back to the county council. The children were put in temporary buildings on the new site. The county council got the money, but provided only half the school.
I will read an extract from a letter from a constituent, who takes up the story and describes better than I can what has happened since. She writes:
For the past 8 and a half years, more children have been housed in temporary classrooms than in permanent accommodation. Continuous housing developments in Howden during the past 10 years have led to increased numbers of children at the school. In the summer term of 1986 there were 199 pupils on the roll. It does not take a mathematician to work out 3 x 30 in each mobile classroom plus 80 in a permanent building adds up to 170. That is a theoretical accommodation level at 29 less than the actual pupil numbers. In the summer of 1987 pupil numbers stood at 189. Having experienced severe difficulties the previous summer, pressure was brought to bear and the authorities agreed to the school's use of a vacant classroom in the adjoining junior school. Such a measure would not be possible in the future as the junior school is now at full capacity. The numbers for summer 1989 were 164, within the school's present capacity, but it is predicted that pupil numbers will rise again in the next few years. Numbers at the moment are expected to be 165 in 1990, 178 in 1991 and 180 in 1992.
I think that those are very optimistic and low estimates.
The letter continues:
In December 1988, Humberside County Council stated that late January 1990 start and completion of the building was expected and there was no intention of delay, unless the current budget review dictated otherwise. Following a visit by the assistant education officer (sites and buildings) it is now understood that the completion is unlikely to take place for at least two years. The proposed completion (or extension as the authority mistakenly call it) has been in the building estimates for several years. Each year the authority has deferred the building programme.
The reason given this time is that the County Council has discovered that it needs to build a new school in Hull's dockside area. Why should Howden have to suffer for the County's poor planning and lack of foresight? It is not even known how large a school will be needed. Children from the

new Dock side area could be bussed to one of Hull's half empty schools as a temporary measure. The children of Howden are here now; they are not a projected figure for the future and they should have their school completed now. It always seems to be the case that money is available for building in the cities but not in the rural areas.
That view is widely held by my constituents. Indeed, it is a commonplace belief. The letter continues:
This year 77 year 1 and year 2 children aged 5 to 7 years are starting the new year in mobile classrooms; they have to trek across the yard to the toilets, to the hall for Physical Education, movement, dance and drama and collective worship. It is time wasting, and on a wet day they are soaked, and on very cold days it is just miserable and unnecessary. Please can something be done now?
That letter is calm, collected and factual, but for all that, it is a plea from the heart from someone who has children in a school that is more than half temporary and has been so for a long time.
It is not the only case. From my own visit there, Walkington seems to be a similar problem. Rawcliffe school is so old and bedraggled that it needs complete replacement. The reasons for the delays and deferrals given by various representatives of the county council vary enormously—so much so that they smack of excuses rather than reasons. Sometimes they say that the school will be completed, and sometimes that it will not be, either because there are plans for a new school in Howden or because the money is to be used for something else.
I illustrate that with a response from the director of education explaining why Howden is to be deferred again, just one more time. He blames the Government first, of course, for not meeting his bid in full. He then says that there is only enough money for four new schemes. He writes:
One element of the new scheme is a new primary school to serve the new housing development in the Victoria Dock area of Hull. This is a development which has been planned since we planned the Hull Schools reorganisation.
That would be in about 1986. The letter continues:
There are no schools that are within reasonable distance of the new houses which could provide relief.
"Reasonable distance" is, of course, a rather subjective measure. Many of my constituents' children travel much further than the whole diameter of Hull to get to school, and they have no alternative. The letter continues:
The size of the school is 240 places and facility to expand to 360. You will understand that forecasting the size of a school in this housing development is difficult until the mix of housing types is known. We are now confident we know the balance and can forecast accurately. I am sure that you will appreciate that substantial developments such as this constantly bring new factors into our planning process.
In other words, the Hull school has been planned since about 1986. Howden has been planned, nominally, since 1981. The Hull school is for predicted numbers, whereas the Howden completion is for current numbers of pupils and Howden is already overcrowded. The county council's priorities will prevent pupils in Hull having to travel perhaps a mile to another school by frequent bus services. Many of the children at Howden school have to travel quite considerable distances and there is no alternative.
There is a saying in my constituency that Humberside is longhand for Hull. Such political favouritism towards Labour-voting urban areas is, I suppose to be expected, but it is unacceptable that it should continue year after year to the penalty of my constituents' children.
I should like to ask my hon. Friend the Minister to allocate the money for this year's budget for Humberside to specific projects so that my constituents could be


guaranteed fair treatment, but I know that that is no longer an option under current rules. The law expects and assumes that the county council will behave in a responsible manner. However, I ask my hon. Friend to make a generous allocation to Humberside again. Humberside has particular needs and I have no dispute with the county council about the fact that those needs —not least the reorganisation of schools in Goole which is also in my constituency—will prove expensive.
I want my hon. Friend the Minister to make it clear to Humberside, however, that in giving it a generous allocation, he expects it to behave fairly towards the rural schools, especially those in my constituency. The other parts of Humberside have the same right to a good education and proper facilities for their children as are enjoyed by children in the Labour areas of Hull. When my hon. Friend reviews the bid in subsequent years, he should take into consideration just how the money given this year is used and whether the rural population has had a fair deal, because I want a fair deal for rural children in Humberside—no more and no less.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Alan Howarth): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Boothferry (Mr. Davis) on securing this Adjournment debate, and I am grateful to him for providing the House with an opportunity to discuss the important issues that he raised tonight. I have noted, of course, what he has said about the way in which Humberside local education authority has proceeded in implementing the reorganisation proposals and his belief that, as a consequence, rural schools have been neglected. I can well understand his feelings of frustration and those of his constituents as they see much needed work on their schools deferred. I know that projects have been planned but not yet implemented for work at the schools to which he has referred—Howden, Hook, Airmyn, Rawcliffe and Walkington.
I appreciate the difficulties that pupils, teachers and parents have experienced at Howden. My hon. Friend has been in contact with the authority and with us about Howden. Howden infant school is a named school for a 120 basic need extension in the authority's bid for the coming year. It has, however, as my hon. Friend suggested, featured in the authority's bids in previous years, along with other basic need projects—

It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Sitting suspended—

On resuming—

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Chapman.]

Mr. Howarth: As I was saying, Howden featured in the authority's bids in previous years. As basic need was allowed for in the allocation made to the authority in the past it would seem that it has decided not to give priority to this project and presumably has channelled its allocation into the reorganisations. I do not need to remind my hon. Friend that my Department cannot direct a local education authority on how it should spend its

money. The authority is responsible to its electorate for its spending policies, capital and recurrent. In the case of recurrent expenditure, the community charge will make all authorities more directly accountable to their electorates. It is my hon. Friend's constituents who must make their voices heard if there is to be criticism of the way in which Humberside local education authority has spent the money provided for it.
Humberside LEA, in common with every other, has received allocations from us over and above those calculated as necessary to implement proposals for school reorganisation for spending on improvements to other schools, including those in rural areas. If my hon. Friend does not consider that the resources available to the authority have been properly distributed, these are matters for him to continue to take up with the authority, as he has done already on behalf of his constituents.
My hon. Friend has referred to the reorganisation in his constituency—the Goole area—and in particular to the significant increase in the costs of the project. I understand that that has arisen as a result of the authority bowing to local pressure. It has developed, or is in the course of developing, a modern sixth form centre for pupils at the local comprehensive school in the premises of Bartholomew school, a former middle school. This was originally intended to house a primary school. It is now proposed to establish the primary school instead in the premises of the former Boothferry road first school, again in deference to local wishes. I am glad to be able to announce to the House that approval of the new proposal has just been given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science, and the authority notified accordingly.
I hope that my hon. Friend's constituents will be glad that their pleas in respect of the proposed new primary school have not been in vain.
I note my hon. Friend's view that not enough money has been allocated for the Goole reorganisation, and that the authority has spent disproportionately large sums on the establishment of the new sixth form centre. I can only say that the estimated cost of the original proposals, as indicated by the local education authority, was fully taken into account in Humberside's allocations. Where an authority chooses to increase expenditure, or where cost increases occur, these have to be absorbed within its existing capital programme. It is up to local education authorities to get their costings as accurate as possible.
On the more general question of capital resources for schools, the Humberside LEA has submitted ambitious plans for capital spending to my Department. So have all the other local education authorities in England. I am glad to be able to remind the House that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State secured an increase for local authority capital, and for grants to voluntary aided and grant-maintained schools, in this year's public expenditure round. This extra provision will allow continued progress on improvement programmes in schools. Allocations to individual authorities of what are now to be called annual capital guidelines under the new capital control system will be announced by Christmas. We shall be looking at Humberside's needs, including the needs of some of the schools he has described which feature in the authority's plans, against that background. But I would not seek to give the House the impression that what we can distribute will meet all the spending needs identified by all local education authorities.
Hon. Members will have seen the Labour party's report published on Monday on the state of our schools. It is an opportunist and emotive document. Many of the figures are wrong, and some of the conclusions drawn are fanciful. But we would be the first to recognise that a great deal needs to be done to the fabric of schools all over the country to bring them up to scratch and to fit them for delivery of the high standards of education to which parents and teachers alike aspire, not least in the rural areas, and which our children should have. Local education authorities, and governors of voluntary aided schools, spend substantial sums of money each year in tackling the problem. They do this by means of borrowing power which we distribute, of receipts generated by sales of education assets—typically school sites sold as part of a reorganisation —by the use of revenue funds, and grant from the Department in the case of voluntary aided schools. Of course there is never enough to satisfy. The same is true of all public spending programmes.
Capital spending per pupil has nevertheless increased by 10 per cent. in real terms since we came into office. But more needs to be done, and it is against that background that there is to be an increase in local authority capital guidelines and in the money available for grant to governors of voluntary aided schools to which I referred earlier.
As in recent years, priority will be given first to meeting committed expenditure on projects outstanding from previous years. This stands Humberside in good stead because of the large-scale reorganisations approved in Grimsby and Goole which are still being implemented. Priority is next given to meeting the cost of new school places in areas of population growth, and then to removing surplus places. I know that new places for schools in my hon. Friend's constituency figure in Humberside's plans submitted to us. Any remaining funds are distributed to LEAs through an objective formula for spending on school improvements. I must stress that this is the basis for our calculations of entitlement at the Department of Education and Science. How local education authorities choose to spend the money generated by the borrowing power we distribute is up to them. They will be free to supplement this from proceeds of receipts, and from revenue—including the proceeds of the community charge—if they wish.
My hon. Friend suggests that not enough has been allocated to Humberside in recent years. I have yet to meet an hon. Member who tells me that his authority has had a sufficient allocation of capital for schools. What is available within public expenditure constraints has to be shared out as equitably as possible. But, as my hon. Friend generously acknowledged, Humberside has done better than most authorities in recent years in terms of the percentage of its plans covered-72 per cent. in 1987, 53 per cent. in 1988, and 55 per cent. in 1989, against averages for all LEAs of 38 per cent., 39 per cent. and 34 per cent. I am pleased that we were able to offer Humberside an extra allocation this autumn of £213,000 to meet the need for new school places in place of a crumbling school—an example in Humberside of how bogus the Labour party is to claim that we do not care.
My hon. Friend has mentioned the difficulties under which rural schools labour, and the need to safeguard rural life. I entirely agree. It is immensely important that authorities ensure that rural communities have a fair share of the services that they deserve. As for education, we are

well seized of the difficulties that rural primary schools face. Humberside is one of the local education authorities that has benefited from the education support grant programme launched by my Department four years ago to help broaden and enrich the curriculum in rural primary schools. The Department recognised, long before the Education Reform Act and the national curriculum, that small rural primary schools can have real difficulties in ensuring a rich curriculum experience for their children, and that such schools can only too often suffer from isolation, lack of opportunity for contact between pupils and their peer groups, and little chance for teachers, and even head teachers, to compare notes. That is why we have paid grant—at 70 per cent.—on expenditure of some £1·5 million per annum by the 14 local education authorities concerned, all of which had a substantial number of small rural primary schools, as pump-priming funding for a series of projects, developed according to the way in which each authority thinks that the funding should best be used.
We have commissioned an evaluation study from Leicester university of the effects of the education support grant programme so that other authorities, which are not participants in the present programme, can benefit from the lessons learnt. But it is already possible to assert that the programme in general has been successful in meeting its prime objectives in reducing the isolation of small primary schools in our countryside, and enabling pupils to benefit from a richer variety of experience. As it happens, the programme could not have been better timed. Schools which have benefited from the programme, in Humberside and elsewhere, have told us that experience gained from projects funded by the programme has been invaluable in coming to terms with the introduction of the national curriculum.
In Humberside, for example, the local education authority has used education support grant money to fund the costs of five advisory teachers to offer a range of specialist curriculum expertise to schools where otherwise it would not be available. The teaching areas that they have chosen to cover are craft, design and technology, art, expressive arts, and environmental studies. One of their particular briefs is to explore ways of maintaining a degree of specialist teaching in these areas after the withdrawal of teacher consultants. This will enable schools to be more confident about curriculum development in these areas, which are important parts of the national curriculum, and which many small rural schools might not be able otherwise easily to deliver.
I should like to end by thanking my hon. Friend for drawing to my attention the consequences of decisions by his local education authority of changes in priorities for capital spending—consequences which impact directly on the quality of life in the rural areas that he represents. I am as concerned as he to see the quality of rural life safeguarded and enhanced. Rural areas must share in the increase in prosperity which the Government have helped to bring about since we have held office. This applies as much to the fabric of schools as it does to roads and other services.
My hon. Friend asked me to be generous to Humberside, and I assure him that I shall do my best to ensure that resources are made available to the Humberside local education authority at a level which reflects its needs and the needs of rural areas as far as is compatible with the need that we have to be fair to all authorities within the funds at our disposal.

Education (Industrial Links)

Mr. Richard Page: I apologise to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for keeping him at the crease at this late hour, but I promise to be brief. I welcome this opportunity to talk about the important subject of the requirement and the necessity for industrial links with education. I want to speed on the cultural change taking place between education and industry and to help our school leavers to understand the importance of industry.
Going back a few years, I remember a story that did the rounds about a school teacher who took a number of her charges to a factory. As she loaded them into the coach to return to school, she said, "There you are, children, that's where you'll end up if you don't pass your exams." Unfortunately, that was part of the cultural thinking within the education system at that time. It is a silly story, but it has a grain of truth. That approach must be changed.
I know that over the years attempts have been made to change attitudes. A few years ago it was industrial year and many hon. Members spoke to schools and to industry. I was grateful to the Eastern Electricity board—one might regard it as an unlikely vehicle—which ran a vigorous campaign to bring schools and industry closer. I could not help thinking at the time, "I bet that in Japan every year is industrial year." The industrial links between education and the factories that produce Japanese products are well known. The French education system tries to avoid any form of selection, but for fifth and sixth formers it is the Baccalaureate "C" that has the social cachet connected with maths and science. French parents are proud to say that their sons or daughters have the "C".
On another tack, which I regularly raise in the House, it is a sad fact that of the G7 industrial countries Britain is lowest of the pile in manufacturing investment. In research and development, as a percentage of gross national product, we are lowest in the pile, and the amount we spend on training makes us lowest of the pile. However, the efforts being made by my hon. Friend's Department to give to industry the responsibility for training is beginning to bear fruit and there is a great realism within industry.
It is clear that industry must work a great deal harder to establish links with the classroom and to inspire the young to the view that industry is the future of this country. Teachers must overcome any previous taint that industry is somehow second class. The future economy of our country rests with industry, and I look forward to what my hon. Friend has to say on this matter.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Alan Howarth): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Page) on securing this Adjournment debate, and I very much welcome his choice of subject.
Since the industrial revolution we have seen what might be called the acceleration of history. The rate of change has grown faster, and it grows faster still, and we have to be able to adapt successfully to these rapidly changing technological and economic conditions. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the 1990s will present us with problems and opportunities different from those we have

experienced in the 1970s and 1980s. We cannot hope to predict all of these, but some of them are clear now and it is by no means too early to be planning our strategies to deal with them.
The quality of life for all of us depends on the extent to which our business community—the people who generate the wealth—can cope with the kind of changes of which I speak, and the education system has, as my hon. Friend said, a vital part to play in helping business to succeed.
Our young school leavers will have open to them opportunities that our predecessors would have envied, and a good many of them are getting ready to seize those chances. However, as Louis Pasteur put it,
chance favours only the prepared mind.
The corollary is, of course, that mischance visits the unprepared.
There are now only three short years until the single European market comes into effect in 1992. But beyond the EC lies wider international competition and, of course, the pressure of accelerated scientific and technological innovation.
We must also remember another factor—the demographic time bomb. By the mid-1990s there will be I million fewer 16 to 19-year-olds than in the mid-1980s. Therefore, school leavers will be in a stronger bargaining position than ever before, and that is important. The firms that will be able to attract and retain young people in an increasingly competitive future will be those which offer worthwhile training, the firms that are positively regarded in the local community, the firms that go into schools and the firms that are known to pupils and teachers.
The last decade has seen a tremendous growth in links between schools and the business world. I am glad to be able to tell my hon. Friend that about 90 per cent. of secondary schools now have links with local firms, and more than half of primary schools as well. In the mid-1970s, under 15 per cent. of final-year pupils had been placed in industry for full work experience. By last year this had risen to more than 70 per cent. of all eligible pupils.
However, as my hon. Friend said, there is still more to be done, in terms of both quantity and quality, and much of the onus lies with industry. The CBI business education task force report of last autumn found that more than half the respondents to the business questionnaire had no regular links with secondary schools in 1987, and that very many more small and medium sized companies will need to be recruited to the links effort if we are to meet our targets for work experience. It was schools rather than businesses that were taking the lead in establishing links.
The best way for business to influence the future and to improve its own productive and creative capacity is to become involved now in the schools and colleges. Education-industry links are not a fringe activity. They are not a luxury. It is those firms that are working with schools now who will be best placed to continue to recruit school leavers. In addition, crucially, they will also be best placed to influence the education those young people have received, to ensure that the knowledge, skills and attitudes they gain from their time in school are those that will best fit them for adult life.
To compete successfully as a nation we will need to exploit all our resources to the full, and a major resource is a properly educated and well-motivated work force. Therefore, it is a major thrust of Government policy that the school experience of young people should prepare


them for the responsibilities of adult and working life. Economic awareness should run through many aspects of a child's education. It will be a cross-curricular requirement and an important influence.
The appreciation of economic realities is a necessary complement to the broad scientific and humane education that we regard as necessary for all our children.
The responsibility for giving young people the skills they need rests with both schools and employers. I have mentioned what the CBI task force had to say about the level of business involvement. Its report also made clear that what business wants from education is not specific vocational training but a broad and flexible base of knowledge, skills and attitudes upon which pupils can develop their own talents. Young people should be able to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing; be numerate; have basic screen and keyboard skills, and have a developed sense of responsibility. Business also puts considerable stress on positive attitudes to work, to change, to self-development and to team work—without which knowledge and skills cannot be applied effectively in the workplace.
That willingness on behalf of businesses to help in our schools is becoming more common. The new relationship between schools and business is one of partnership. As we labour to make our schools better attuned to the realities and challenges of economic life, so we are entitled to expect employers to take advantage of the invitation to become involved in education.
The Government's changes to the constitution of school governing bodies should make it easier for schools to draw on advice from people with business experience. One could put it like this: the changes mean, and are intended to mean, that schools and teachers are now in a relationship with business partners. I do not exaggerate the case. A National Foundation for Educational Research survey commissioned by my Department this summer found that 42 per cent. of the membership of reconstituted

governing bodies came from business, the professions, retail and technical occupations and engineering; and of course we are working to help teachers expand their own knowledge of the business world. Contrary to many people's belief, many schools have teachers with experience of work other than teaching. But this is an area where more is better, and the teacher placement service, funded through the DTI's enterprise and education initiative, aims to offer 10 per cent. of teachers each year the opportunity of a placement in business.
The Government are convinced of the virtues of close links between education and business. We have launched a number of major initiatives to bring schools into closer contact with the world of work—such as TVEI, which requires work experience and is currently being extended nationwide at a cost of £900 million; the provision in every LEA of a work experience adviser; and the teacher placement service. We provide support to a wide range of bodies that promote and arrange school-industry links. And, by no means least, the national curriculum will ensure that the education that our children receive is more relevant to the world of work—and thus to their needs throughout their lives—than ever before.
I must not finish without paying tribute to the work of the teachers in schools, without whose efforts the position would not be so dramatically improved. The Government have brought about the climate in which the improvements of the last decade have occurred. But the actual formation of worthwhile links between a school and local firms requires energy and commitment at local level. Those teachers who have worked so hard in the last decade to bring about such links—and who, aided by the framework of the national curriculum, will, I know, continue that development—deserve our praise and gratitude.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-six minutes past Ten o'clock.